...Amanda Whitley Ashley Morgan ENG 2003 D2 29 November 2015 Courtly Love – Annotated Bibliography Boase, Roger. The Origin and Meaning of Courtly Love: A Critical Study of European Scholarship. Towota, New Jersey: Manchester UP, 1977. This rather compressed study covers an amazing variety of sources, taking up how numerous periods of literary scholars commented on courtly love, the various locations where courtly love arose in the medieval period (and why), and how the significance of courtly love itself has been understood across time, geography, and literary movements. Eventually, after surveying the field, Boase argues that courtly love appear on behalf of as a wide-reaching traditional trend, arising predominantly in a court-based Christian culture, influenced by predominantly Spanish (and relatedly, Arabic) concepts of love and relationships between men and women. He detects courtly love strictly in the fictive world of poetry, denying that any person actually meant to apply its principles to the ‘real-world’ – this element of ‘play’ recognized courtly love as an acceptable aristocratic manifestation of passion. Cherchi, Paolo. “The Ambiguity of Courtly Love in Andreas Capellanus’ Model.” Andreas and the Ambiguity of Courtly Love. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1994. 3-41. The emphasis in this chapter is on courtly love as it is conveyed by musicians – among the many poets and geographies to choose from. Troubadours focus on...
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...During the Middle Ages Courtly Love was appeared to be very strict as it was practiced all across Europe. Marriages were arranged by the parents during this time in order to increase the status and wealth of each family. Courtly Love had very little to do with love in the middle Ages. Courtly love is a medieval literary conception of love that emphasized nobility and chivalry. Courtly love was practiced in the courts but in tales it was shown through knights. But, where there were courtly love you, there were also sexual desires. In the middle ages, women were seen to be more lustful than the men which is different from modern day which men are seen to be more lustful than women. The knight’s, the wife of bath’s, and the miller’s tale are...
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...The Chivalrous Ideal and Courtly love in Medieval England Dobrea Andrada-Cristina Anul III Engleză-Japoneză As contoured by the pages of time and history, each and every Era of our evolutionary process has offered the next one the privilege of witnessing a fascinating world, jewelled in magnificent ideals and a specific behaviour, beautiful even in its flaws. Among these, a haunting and mesmerizing Era captures the thought of literary critics – the Medieval Period. A period marked by powerful beliefs, conflict and self-knowledge, and inhabited by a spirit torn between Christianity and paganism, between virtue and sin, between light and utter darkness. An Era portraying a country trying to adapt to drastic changes brought on by the Norman Conquest of 1066, a country fighting to establish its own history in order to gain independence. A Period of knights and ladies, of valour and good faith, which gives life to some of the highest ideals mankind has ever known. It has introduced us to concepts such as chivalry and courtly love, pure expressions of spiritual essence. Of these ideals poets and authors wrote with lively passion, embroidering them in poems such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, or The Wife of Bath. Although its poet remains unknown, the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight remains instilled in our minds as one of the prime examples of chivalry, Gawain representing the chivalrous ideal of the period. His story begins at New Year, in a court filled...
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...Dalairis Amaro Professor Riebman HIST 103 December 6, 2013 Courtly Love: The Emancipation of Love Woman have never been viewed equally in society, they are expected to be pure, innocent, and silent while men are not held to that same standard. Men have always been allowed to have multiple women, and been put in a position above their woman. She is merely a possession that owes him loyalty, respect, and honor. In Medieval times a woman was simply an acquisition like acquiring land. This idea that women are held to higher expectations in morality and purity is something instilled by the church centuries ago, but something that still remains current. Just in 2009 there was an incident in Sicily where a man decapitated his wife in front of his family because she was having an online affair. Giuseppe Castro, 35, stabbed his wife Gia Scuto, 41, in the neck, then sawed her head off after seeing messages she was sending back and forth with her online lover (Nelson, “Jealous Husband”). Castro stated “She was chatting with other men I just couldn’t take it anymore” (Nelson, Jealous Huband). The possession that Castro felt over his wife is an entitlement that has been passed down through centuries. His wife owed him loyalty even if they were unhappy or she was being mistreated. The institution of marriage has never been about love, but more about economic gain or accomplishing political goals. Most women were married off to complete strangers. If they loved each other it came...
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...The Knight’s Tale Courtly love, according to Mr. Windham, is the idealized view of an extra-marital relationship between the sexes in which a knight performs brave deeds to win the approval of a lady. Courtly love occurred mostly during the 1066-1485, otherwise known as the middle ages. This form of love can be found all throughout The Knight’s Tale, a tale of two cousins, who do everything from the proclaiming of their love for Emily, to fighting an epic knight battle in an arena; this tale seems to be courtly love through and through, but there is something that is prohibiting this tale to be a true tale of courtly love; their proclaimed love, Emily, is not married. The first reading of courtly love is the knights’ proclamation of love towards Emily. These two knights, Arcite and Palamon, are cousins with a brotherly bond. They have a chivalrous honor and promised to watch after each other no matter what. This is their code of honor emphasizing loyalty to each other. After the Battle of Thebes, these two knights are found wounded on the battle field. Theseus, the king of Athens who marched on Thebes, spares their lives but condemns them to life in an Athenian tower. On one day of their imprisonment, Palamon wakes...
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...In “Guigemar” Marie de France presents the archetype of the courtly love in fairy tale-like form. In this lai I found many parallelisms with The Romance of the Rose, however, while we finished The Romance of the Rose in a inconclusive way, Marie de France comes to a full circle. At the beginning of the story, Guigemar appears to be the personification of a courtly knight since he is handsome, young, intelligent, noble, and has the court’s favor. And yet he refuses to love anyone. But once he enters the woods, his fate as a vessel for courtly love is fulfilled. There is a parallel to Romance of the Rose where the narrator finally enters the garden of Diversion and Courtly Love follows him along with Sweet Looks who is the one carrying his...
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...Introduction The familiarity with the love tradition makes it easily mistakable for a natural and universal phenomenon and even brings a laxity of enquiring into its origins. However, it is difficult of not impossible to show love to be anything more than an artistic phenomenon or construct- a literary per formative innovation of Middle Ages. Courtly love was a medieval European formation of nobly, and politely expressing love and admiration. Courtly love was secret and between members of the nobility. (Simpson). The term "courtly love" was first popularized by Gaston Paris in 1883. It has since come under a wide variety of definitions and uses, even being brushed off as nineteenth-century romantic fiction. Its understanding, beginning, and weight persist as an issue of significant question. Origin of the term ‘courtly love’ The term courtly love was given its original definition by Gaston Paris in 1883 in the journal Romania in the article "Études sur les romans de la Table Ronde: Lancelot du Lac, II: Le conte de la charrette" a treatise inspecting Chretien de Troyes's Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart (1177). The term courtly was derived from the term ‘amour courtis’ which according to Paris was an admiration and an ennobling discipline. The lover accepts the autonomy of his mistress and tries to make himself worthy of her attention by trying to act bravely and doing whatever deed she desires. In order to prove to her his passion and his unwavering commitment and, he...
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..."The Humours" • Values of "courtly love" • The Code of Chivalry(CF) The Poets and Authors: Caedmon: First English poet; author of "The Dream of the Holy Rood." Venerable Bede: wrote the Ecclesiastical History of England and the scientific treatise, De Natura Rerum. Geoffrey Chaucer: Famous Medieval author of the Canterbury Tales. Margery Kempe: Author of the first autobiography in English. John Gower: Medieval poet and friend of Geoffrey Chaucer Francesco Petrarch: Italian poet, and a humanist. Famous for his poems addressed to Laura. Dante: Medieval poet and politician. Christine de Pizan: Medieval author and feminist. William Longland: English poet who wrote the Vision of Piers Plowman. Boccaccio: Italian writer who was famous for writing the Decameron. Raphael Holinshed: Medieval author of Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland. (KM) Romance: • Chivalry was the reason behind this type of literature. • The greatest English example of the romance is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. • The romance hero-who often has the help of magic-undertakes a quest to conquer an evil enemy. (KM) Chivalry: • A system of ideals and social codes governing the behavior of knights and gentlewoman. • The rules included: taking an oath of loyalty to the overlord and observing certain rules of warfare. • Adoring a particular lady was seen as a means of self-improvement. (KM) Courtly Love: • The idea that adoring...
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...of chapels. Furthermore, the Middle Ages was a time when a lot of growth happened, such as the rise of troubadours. Troubadours became known within the secular portion of the empires in the middle ages, and became popular within monarchs and noblemen very quickly. The troubadours were well known for their expressions for chivalry and courtly love. Troubadours become popular in the 12th and 13th centuries of the middle ages. They were very popular in the middle ages because the rise of troubadours was a significant movement in the arts. The influence of the troubadours became so large in the Middle Ages that it spread through different countries of Western Europe, such as Spain and Italy. Troubadours became so popular in the middle ages because they played music and poetry together. This was something unheard of before the starting of the troubadours. Troubadours are more than what people usually think of them. The poem of troubadours is not only of courtly love, but also consists of political and satirical contents. Because there is only limited information on the middle ages, troubadours are thought to only have the concept of undying love. Furthermore, Troubadours consists of Noblemens, and monarchs, such as a prince...
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...centuries (Dictionary.com, 2012). They wrote songs and poems of a complex metrical form in langue d’oc, mainly about courtly love. In courtly love the lover sees his ability to resist these temptations and rise above his own base humanity as evidence of his spiritual purity (Syre, 2013). According to Syre (2013), “The smitten knight or nobleman must be willing to perform any deed to win his lady’s favor, the lady often being his lord’s wife”. The trobairitz is the female version of the troubadour but their poems were mainly focused on romantic love (Dictionary.com, 2012). The trobairitz used poetry to share stories of romantic longing and unattainable love, focusing on the feelings associated with romantic love such as longing, suffering, and a desire to do whatever possible to have the feeling of love reciprocated (Career Education Corporation, 2010). The troubadours are said to have “invented” romantic love as we know it today by the conventions and vocabulary that we use to describe it (Syre, 2013). According to Syre (2013), “to love is to suffer, to wander aimlessly, unable to concentrate on anything but the mental image of the beloved, to give up life for a dream”. While reducing women to barely more than objects of male desire, in some way, courtly love also allowed them to share in the power enjoyed by their husbands (Syre, 2013). Poems about courtly love were written in the common language you heard on the streets and not in the Latin of the highly educated so that...
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...court-based poets, often of aristocratic standing. While many others traveled and preformed the troubadour’s creations, the troubadours perfected the art of composition, delivering their poetic verse through musical recitation. The romantic-poetic love song was born, and the concept quickly spread to other European areas. The troubadour’s audience included the lord and his peers, the wife and her attendants, and others who resided within the court. Especially known for the praise songs that he wrote to address the noble wife of his employer, the troubadour expressed devotion and obedience in exchange for being made “a better man.” Although it may have led to romance in some cases, it was largely a symbolic gesture, an expression of love and admiration typical of the feudal obligatory system. The notion continued in the practice of chivalry, where the woman was upheld as the pure, weak, virtuous sex. Thus, courtly love was the subject of most troubadour songs, an expression of unattainable “worship of afar” that was to be met with rejection by the lady. The knight would in turn reply that he was “dying” from lack of returned affection. That the noble woman of Occitania began to write songs expressing their own feelings about matters of love is not only interesting, it was very unusual. The only known women troubadours were from that region, and their songs go on record as being among the first known secular works of women composers. “Trobairitz” were not of the knightly troubadour...
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...Era. After Eleanor’s and the other 300 ladies great tribute to their cause, women began to explore reading and writing which opened a new wave of ideas in the form of self-expression; ergo, birthing the troubadour (men) and trobairitz (women) poets. Using a lyre or lute, these poets used conventions and terms to describe their idea and feelings of romantic love; however, coming from different point of views, in terms of gender troubadour poems focused on a knight or nobleman longing for a woman while trobairitz poems focused on the woman longing for the knight or nobleman (Sayre, 2010). Both poems convey one message: to love is to suffer: thus, one will lose oneself mentally because of not having the one they love. Aren’t these expressions of love the same as many displayed in the entertainment industry? For example, the courtly love tradition has the knight or nobleman performing a deed to win his lady’s favor (Sayre, 2010). Many movies display a man or woman willing to give it all to win his or her lover back. The only difference is the way the words are noted. As with many women, I find these expressions of love thrilling and sad. True, the content is a little surprising considering that it was from medieval times where one would think that people were more secretive about their feelings and extra-marital endeavors. How these individuals expressed their sexual ideas and their willingness to commit adultery is shocking; however, the beauty of these expressions weighs...
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...Displayed in ‘A Knights tale’, William Thatcher was a lowly serif that came up with the idea to change his future to be a knight, while Adhemar, a noble born knight plays the antagonist and tries to stop William in his chivalrous and courtly ways. In this tale William not only showed more chivalry and courtly love than Adhemar, but also, the right way to do it. Courtly love is when one such as a knight has a love for another women. He chases after her and only has eyes for her. William showed this when he met Jocelyn. He would write her poems even though he himself could not write. During the banquet after the jousting matches he would speak to her in words that showed meaning and love. He even danced with her. Jocelyn even gave him her...
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...In the opening scene of Twelfth Night, Shakespeare defines his concept of courtly love. An examination of the opening soliloquy foreshadows the author’s views on the different views of love between the nobility and peasantry classes. It is clear from Orsino’s ruminations that he that he believes in love as a pure ideal. To paraphrase, Orsino believes in love at first sight and is immediately smitten by Olivia. He states, “O, when my eyes did see Olivia first, Methought she purged the air of pestilence” (3). In many ways, this is classic Shakespeare who, as a playwright and historian, thrives on dichotomy as a literary trope. Shakespeare exemplifies this topsy turvy notion, that I brand a dichotomy, by introducing the character of Olivia’s Uncle Toby Belch. Toby, to be polite despite his name, is a drunk. However, he is the comedic figure of the play. While nonsensical, he emblemizes the fact that love is real. He is a clown, but like many, clowns in literature, he is the most grounded character, despite his obvious flaws in the play. When Toby speaks, the viewer, importantly the audience of an Elizabethan drama not a 21st century English class, understands love is real. In this manner Toby acts as a mask for the real world....
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...Major Themes in 'Much Ado About Nothing' Shakespeare’s treatment of love in Much Ado About Nothing differs from his other romantic comedies. Sure, it shares the same stagy plot, which finishes with the lovers finally getting back together, but Shakespeare also mocks the conventions of courtly love which was popular at the time. Although Claudio and Hero’s courtly marriage is central to the plot, their relationship is the least interesting thing in the play. Instead, our attention is drawn to Benedick and Beatrice’s unromantic backbiting – it is this relationship that seems more believable and enduring. By contrasting these two different types of love, Shakespeare manages to poke fun at the conventions of courtly, romantic love. Claudio uses highly contrived language when speaking of love, which is undermined by Benedick and Beatrice’s banter: “Can the world buy such a Jewel?” says Claudio of Hero. “My dear Lady disdain! Are you yet living?” says Benedick of Beatrice. As an audience, we are supposed to share Benedick’s frustration with Claudio’s transparent, pompous rhetoric of love: “He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier … His words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes.” Deception As the title suggests, there is a lot of fuss over very little in the play – after all, if Claudio wasn’t so impetuous, Don John’s rather weak plan wouldn’t have worked at all! What makes the plot so intricate is the use of deception...
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