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Abstract

Abstract This article focuses on the relation between early-modern discourses on the interpretation of dreams, esp. prophetic dreams, and the novel. Rabelais’ Tiers livre , Sorel’s Histoire comique de Francion and Grimmelshausen’s Simplicissimus Teutsch all betray a detailed awareness of this type of prognostic knowledge, on whose epistemological claims, however, they launch severe, often comical attacks. Instead, they implicitly advocate for a different conception of the future, whose inherent unpredictability finds itself at odds with the idea of knowing it in advance ( pro-gnosis ). At the same time, this new temporality constitutes a chief characteristic of the genre of the novel itself.