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 own mindset as devotees rather than reflect on the ladies of their affection. The differences Cherchi puts forth of troubadours’ version of courtly love are exceptionality, loyalty, and anguish, as well as the love itself as a source of moral goodness. In certain, he claims that Capellanus’ text serves as a clarification of courtly love, as described by troubadours – rather than a codification of it. He visualizes the troubadours as pursuing love & courtly ideals in a rising fashion, that they might reach the pedestal on which they have placed women. Crane, Susan. Gender and Romance in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1994. In this renewed expression at Chaucer's relation to English and French romances of the late Middle Ages, Crane shows that Chaucer's portrayals of masculinity and femininity set up an widespread and compassionate response to the genre. For Chaucer, she proposes, gender is the defining apprehension of romance. As the introductory narratives of courtship, romances contribute in the late medieval expansion of new meanings around heterosexual identity. Crane draws on activist and genre theory to argue that Chaucer's profound interest in the cultural structure of masculinity and femininity arises in large part from his experience of romance. In depicting the development of young women and men, romances stage a belief of identity that is based in gender difference. Less obviously gendered apprehensions of romance--social hierarchy, magic, and adventure--are also involved in conveying femininity and masculinity. The genders prove to be not simply dualistic opposites but overlapping and fluctuating referents. Unjustifiable social standing can carry a feminine taint; women's explorations recall but also dispute those of men.

Denomy, Alexander. The Heresy of Courtly Love. Boston College Candlemas Lectures on Christian Literature. New York: MacMillan Company, 1947. This short lecture circulated 60 years ago offers an unquestionably Christian perspective on the marvel of courtly love, arguing that this notion of love separates ideals of love from Christianity. Though a primitive trope, Denomy is apprehensive with its permeation through centuries of works and in relationship beliefs through his time. Denomy forms several complications within courtly love that designates it as “immoral and heretical” (55). First, it unites fornication, adultery, and sacrilege to quality, in worship of the lady. Second, courtly love redefines the significance of ‘purity’ – a sensual, carnal desire that is selfishly focused leads to a spiritual association of hearts and minds. To finish, the ‘system’ of courtly love decrees that man is a ‘natural’ creature who is slave to his cravings, whereas man ought to be seen as both spiritual and rational, higher than this world and able to control passions and movements. Kelly, Henry Ansgar. Love and Marriage in the Age of Chaucer. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1975. Kelly takes a new look at medieval approaches toward love, sexuality, and marriage, and he modifies a number of long-standing misunderstandings embodied in the concept of courtly love. Through a close inspection of canon law, the common practice of concealed marriage, writings on theology, and medieval poetry - particularly Gower's 'Confessio amantis' and Chaucer's romances and their sources - he completes that medieval lovers preferred matrimony and did not consider sexual passion mismatched with virtue. His suggestion contradicts the theory, closely accompanying with C.S. Lewis, that extramarital love was preferred in the middle Ages, and that the sexual pleasures distinguished by poets were necessarily regarded as immoral by society at large. By placing religious and cultural determinations in their proper context, Kelly shows that the expectations and worries of medieval lovers were much the same as those of lovers of all other ages

Rougemont, Denis de. Love in the Western World. 1940. Transl. Montgomery Belgion. New York: Pantheon, 1956. This older writting covers a vast range of ideas, writers, and movements, from the romantic legend to early 20th-century ideals of love and marriage. Through it all runs the thread of the inconsistencies demonstrated in literature and culture between marriage and passion. In favor to courtly love, Rougemont takes up the troubadours as a means to understand it, inquiring how it ascended in the medieval period in particular. He proposes that the religious atmosphere which uttered ‘formal behavior’ inclined the rise of courtly love – predominantly the simultaneous rise of the Catharit Church, which placed prominence on both chastity and mystical experience. He places this strong spiritual movement in a larger perspective of the worship of women. Despite its age, this book is a liking to read and informative on a wide range of topics. Schultz, James. Courtly Love, the Love of Courtliness, and the History of Sexuality. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2006. This revision interprets courtly love as collecting a particular type of sexuality that makes itself known through social actions – a courtly aim for similarity, through love. Schultz enquiries the impression that courtly love must always be heterosexual, turning to medieval German texts for exploration. In repute to courtly love itself, Schultz places part of its significance on its lack of focus on the body – courtly ideals unwavering a love object, not attractive bodies – yet pleasure, even from afar, often arose from female bodies. He also claims, rather than recognizing an already-existing danger, courtly love texts produced a threat – love and its overpowering nature – that they then delivered an answer for in terms of discipline. Wurtele, Douglas J. “Chaucer’s Franklin and the Truth About ‘Trouthe.’” English Studies in Canada 13:4 (Dec. 1987): 359-374. Wurtele delivers historical outlook to the role of vows in the medieval period, aiming to describe Dorigen’s promise to Aurelius in the Franklin’s Tale as both lightly given and unenforceable, as is seen to her clear association to Arveragus & their marital relationship, and Arveragus’ nonexistence when she speaks it, respectively (a husband had to ‘approve’ of undertakings made by a wife for them to be taken earnestly). He indicates that the question of the story is not the demande d’amour at its conclusion, but rather how the playing-out of courtly love / chivalry – which holds ‘honor’ or ‘trouthe’ above all else – should occur. In the end, Wurtele faults the Franklin with offering Arveragus as a looking glass of himself: instead of truly continuance ideals of gentleness, wherein a lady’s wishes are “paramount,” he instead complies blindly with a “code of conduct he does not fully understand” (368). Ultimately, Wurtele completes that Chaucer desired to determine the inconsistency of marriage and courtly love in this particular story.