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Examples Of Courtly Love In The Knight's Tale

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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 …show more content…
A tale of courtly love is supposed to be one of an extra-marital relationship between the sexes. Though Emily is part of nobility, unfortunately, in The Knight’s Tale there is no extra-marital relationship because she is not married. Even though with this one minor discrepancy, many people still categorize The Knight’s Tale as a courtly love tale. Also in courtly love the two lovers are not supposed to have any sexual relations, but in the case of The Knight’s Tale, Palamon and Emily did eventually get married. Also recalling that Palamon had prayed to the god Saturn, the god of love, we can believe that they did in fact have sexual relations at some

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