In the Perlesvaus, characters' dreams and visions reveal the extent of their ability to interpret their adventures, and show how thematic repetitions shape narrative structure.

The Perlesvaus is substantial and displays a highly complex structure, both in broad terms of narrative interlace (whereby the tale follows different strands, thus charting the progress of various knights on the Quest) and in terms of what William Nitze and Norris Lacy have described as linking and analogy, forms of interlace which operate at the level of detail and involve groups of or individual figural elements within and across episodes. Repetitions and variations on a theme provide the building-blocks for this romance, as they do for others of the period.

The adventures experienced by the knights have symbolic significance related to their progress (or lack thereof) on the Quest. In fact, the aventures encountered by the characters are tests of their spiritual worth, and, as such, are to a greater or lesser degree manifestations of the merveilleux, often with specifically Christian overtones. Some adventures appear, at first sight, to consist of non-figural elements or events; however, even these adventures can be interpreted retrospectively as having figural significance. I propose to approach the problem of relating metaphor and structure in the Perlesvaus initially by examining those adventures in which the merveilleux is clearly present, and such episodes can be sub-divided into several categories: illusions; dreams and visions; sounds (especially Voices) and odours. Note that these are all sensory experiences.