An Analyis of the Conventions of Courtly Love Within the Miller's Tale and Morte Darthur

This can be seen through a comparison of parallel protagonists Palamon and Ferdinand, as well as parallel antagonists Arcite and Caliban. Their many similarities reveal an insight to each author’s view of love and how it is gained. Palamon and Ferdinand are men of the heart who do not have the girl initially, nor do they claim her. Instead, they wish the best for her and are willing to work for and serve her, regardless of the outcome. In contrast, Arcite and Caliban are men of the physical who take the woman they love by force and physically serve her in order to fulfill their prideful desires, completely disregarding the wishes of their beloved. Strikingly, all four of these men are of noble birth, and all four willingly lower themselves from a position of power to a position of service in order to gain a woman’s love; however, only the men who also serve her selflessly succeed in winning her love. Both men of the heart end up “getting the girl” in the metaphorical sense, although it takes time and they must be patient. In contrast, the men who have the girl initially –Arcite and Caliban – begin by taking her by force and have her in the literal sense, but lose her in the end. All of these elements show that Chaucer and Shakespeare believe the selfless and humble approach to be the most effective way to gain

Chaucer’s rendition of poetic justice entwines each singular case into a comedic and captivating tale. Interestingly, the young student Nicholas’ flaws facilitate the impact poetic justice has on the other major characters. Every character’s respective retribution for their moral flaws affects what is most important to them. Nicholas loses both his sexual and intellectual prospects; John’s marriage becomes strained and he loses what credibility he had; Absolon is forced to realize that he is not the person he perceives himself to be; and Alisoun loses her freedom. “The Miller’s Tale” enforces the idea that comedic poetic justice relies on moral ambiguity as well as character’s straying from their stereotypical

Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales are some of the most widely read and anthologized pieces of medieval poetry. These tales are generally celebrated and enjoyed because of the author’s use of wit and satire, as Chaucer often uses word play and characterization to deliver hard-hitting, yet entertaining truths about his time period. This is the case in “The Miller’s Tale,” which portrays the story of a carpenter with an adulterous wife and the shenanigans that take place during and after one of her affairs. After closely examining “Absalom’s Revenge,” the last section of this tale, it is clear to see that Chaucer uses language, puns, and other writing techniques to provide a commentary on the lewdness of some who lived during the Middle Ages.

During the Middle Ages using the method of courtly love was very common. It was defined as a way of worshiping a woman to get their attention and love in a noble way by doing heroic deeds or just by giving the women gifts. Back then the most known courtly lovers were the knights for being known as very chivalrous and noble men. In “the Miller’s Tale”, the use of courtly love is the complete opposite of what it usually is. The story telling the story, in other words the miller makes a complete parody of courtly love and what it stands for, he makes it seem very vulgar by the way he talks about the characters in a very sexual manner and the deeds that the characters do throughout the story. I think this story was made for that purpose, to

Guinevere, being a lady of the court, abides to the dictates of courtly love. Courtly love is a code created by the court poets in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, under the promotion of Marie de Champagne. There is more of a social code than a written law that is adhered to. It is, rather, a fanciful trend that hits the courts of the nobility. Courtly love actually condones fornication, adultery, sacrilege, but represents them as a necessary element to what it considers to be virtuous(Denomy 22). This adultery is accepted, as it is believed that true love cannot be found through the politically arranged marriages that occur. One marries a husband for bettering land holdings, power, and wealth, and

This unit, on the first two acts of John Webster’s Renaissance tragedy The Duchess of Malfi, focuses on the representation of the theme of love and marriage in the Malfi court,

In Chaucer’s “Franklin Tale” the plot revolves around a married couple: the knight, Arviragus, his young wife, Dorigen, and a young squire, Aurelius who importunes and attempts to Dorigen. The characters can be said to oscillate between desire and their ego honor which affects what they say and do. Lacan’s definition of desire tells us that we desire for recognition from this “Other.” Our desire is to become what the other person lacks. Duby’s model of courtly love is a concept that focuses on chivalry, nobility and women being at the center. In this paper, I will examine what the story reveals about the relation each character has to his or her desire, how they act in accordance to their desire and the role magic or illusion plays in the plot and how it affect characters’ relation to desire.

Palomon says, " The Beauty of the lady whom I see wandering yonder in the garden

The balance of the love triangle is also thrown awry in the Miller’s tale. Not only if a fourth man present, Alison’s wife John (who is not even included in any form of romance throughout the tale) but Alison’s affection seem to only be for Nicholas. She is easily seduced by Nicholas and has little, to no romantic interest in Absalon, fooling him into kissing her rear and then laughing about it with Nicholas. These elements merely add to the Miller’s tale of perversion, distancing and parodying itself from the Knight’s tale of honor and true love.

Courtly love is a ritual designed to be performed over a series of years, yet in “The Knight’s Tale”,

In Le Morte D’Arhtur, courtly love becomes evident through Queen Qwynevere and Sir Lancelot. Their relationship is filled with desperate romance. Lancelot hangs on every last word she utters. All she must do is ask, and Lancelot would give to her whatever she wished for with the words, “My Lady it shall be done!” (Malory 472). Courtly love mimics the true love Queen Qwynevere and Sir Lancelot had acquired. Courtly love is a notion of nobly and chivalrously expressing love and admiration. Sir Lancelot could not refrain from his infatuation with the queen, “In spite of his longing and travail in matters of the spirit, Sir Lancelot knew that he was bound to his earthly love for the queen” (Malory 449). Courtly love paradoxically is descried as a spiritual attachment. That is contradicting because of idea of courtly love was not traditionally practiced between a husband and a wife. Being as the Catholic Church was the primary source of religion present this is adultery. Lancelot and Queen Qwynevere consequently remembered for their open love affair. Religion did not play a major role in the story of King Arthur, but direct parts of the tales of King Arthur are said to come from straight from medieval music.

I want to explore certain types of mind-altering elements, or “drugs”, in Malory’s Morte Darthur. By focusing on the psychological and physiological effects of both love and enchantments (two key components of Arthurian legends) primarily in the Guinevere, Lancelot, Arthurian love triangle, I will argue that love and magic—while intensely pleasurable—weaken and cloud the minds of those affected thus limiting their abilities to function in a chivalric and penitent society and ultimately leading to their destruction.

love” makes evident Chaucer’s skewed views of love and marriage with underlying tones of misogyny. He expresses these views throughout the work, however, the theme of love and sex is most evident in the sub-stories of The Wife of Bath and The Miller’s Tale.

During the Middle Ages, Courtly love was a code which prescribed the conduct between a lady and her lover (Britannica). The relationship of courtly love was very much like the feudal relationship between a knight and his liege. The lover serves his beloved, in the manner a servant would. He owes his devotion and allegiance to her, and she inspires him to perform noble acts of valor (Schwartz). Capellanus writes, in The Art of Courtly Love, “A true lover considers nothing good except what he thinks will please his beloved”. The stories of Marie de France and Chrétien de Troyes illustrate the conventions of courtly love.

This function of marriage endured throughout much of human history, even transcending different cultures, so often, in plays from past centuries, marriage plots function not like a familiar Katherine Heigl romantic comedy but rather like a business deal. This disparity leaves modern audiences who grew up on these movies unable to understand the at times strange, clinical nature of marriage in plays such as Goldoni’s A Servant To Two Masters. Furthermore, without this knowledge of the historical practice of marriage, audiences cannot clearly understand the dynamic between fathers and daughters like Pantaloon and