Courtly Love and Mediieval Romance

romantic love celebrated in songs and romances of the Medieval Period. Moreover, being a code

The Courtier, originally written as a “courtesy book”, can now be considered to provide significant insight into the norms and practices associated with courtship and gender during the Renaissance era. The book’s third volume is a particularly insightful window into 16th century romantic ideals. Throughout Book Three, Baldassare Castiglione builds an elaborate perspective on what makes the perfect court lady, what sexual and social behavior is acceptable, and how an ideal couple (both courtier and court lady) should function.

Ever since the beginning of time, love has played an enormous role among humans. Everyone feels a need to love and to be loved. Some attempt to fill this yearning with activities and possessions that will not satisfy – with activities in which they should not participate and possessions they should not own. In Andrew Marvell’s poem, “To His Coy Mistress,” the speaker encounters an emotion some would call love but fits better under the designation of lust for a woman. In contrast, the speaker of Robert Herrick’s poem, “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,” urges virgins to marry, to make a lasting commitment in which love plays a

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

During the medieval times, Marie de France, unlike the male writers of her time, wrote courtly stories that depicted women who were predominantly featured in the primary roles with empathy and questioned the sexist predicaments women were often subjected to. Women often times struggled to find their voice, but her stories told the perseverance and progress within those constraints. Instead, she wrote of men idealizing wealthy, powerful, independent, beautiful women. She inserts the thoughts and feelings from a woman’s perspective. In a sense, giving women the voice they strived to have heard in a male dominated time period. As Damon stated in the article “Marie de France: Psychologist of Courtly Love,” “Contemporary readers might have noted that the characters departed occasionally from the established laws of courtly conduct; none the less, as all such departures were towards reality, they were welcomed.” She opened the door for women’s self-expression and individual achievement. Marie de France’s popular adulterous love stories bring about many fascinating ethical questions.

The admiration of courtly love is no more prevalent theme in Marie's lais than on “Yonec” and “Lanval”. These two lais are showing very aristocratic views on socially states; love of nobility. A love that cannot be explained by a commoner or peasant that cannot show status has nothing to offer, for courtly love because a peasant has no chivalry. This courtly love is often secret in that a knight and a lady are not married to one another but to a different partner making the story adulterous. That secret at the end makes the story ecstatic and tragic; the adhesive of the story is the passion of love that is displayed making the store ecstatic and the secret is the tragedy that love cannot be acknowledged. The principal argument of this essay is to understand courtly love in Marie de France’s lais.

In the play `Romeo and Juliet` the writer William Shakespeare uses the theme of love as a main feature to push the story along. Presented are a plethora of variations of love including family love, true love and courtly love. This essay aims to analyse these three types of love chosen.

According to American mythologist, Joseph Campbell, “The greatest love was during the Medieval Ages, when noble hearts produced a romantic love that transcended lust” (Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers [2001]). The Lais of Marie de France are primarily concerned with this idea of love--specifically, courtly love--between a man and a woman. Courtly love, a union modeled after the feudal relationship between a knight and his liege lord, became a popular convention in the 12th century (“Backgrounds to Romance: ‘Courtly Love’”). Instead of proving loyalty to a lord, the man would have to prove his love to a woman. Marie de France, however, focuses not just on the idea of love, but also on the differing kinds of love that existed in medieval society. She recognizes love as a force that cannot be avoided and that can be executed correctly or incorrectly; not all love is equal. Marie begins her collection of lais with the stor y of Guigemar, a noble knight who is cursed with the task of finding true love to heal a physical injury.

By the mid-fourteenth century, courtly love became an accustomed behavior. The heart of courtly love grew to demand a knight’s complete obedience to his mistress under his honor and courtesy, by means of taxing ordeals to prove his enduring commitment to her. The resulting relationship would be characterized by full expressions of mutual lust and love. Fast-forward to America during the Roaring Twenties and romantic love had long become the basis of most marriages, but the great Jay Gatsby revives the medieval style of courtship to address his deep affection for his beauteous lover.

The idea of courtly love and its shift are discussed in great detail. In her work, courtly love is a concept of love freely exchanged between members of the aristocracy. It was loosed based on the concept of vassalage “…the military relation of knight to lord, distinguished itself (in its early days) by being freely entered into” (Kelly-Gadol 178). The concept of courtly love derived from feudalism, according to the article. Courtly love gave women power over their bodies and over whom they loved regardless of whom they married.

due to courtly love. Both of themes are crucial in forming themes and plots in medieval stories

Elements of courtly love can be seen in both "The Book of the Duchess" and "The Knight's Tale." In "The

Courtly love or domnei was a medieval European conception of nobly and chivalrously expressing love and admiration.[1] Generally, courtly love was secret and between members of the nobility.[2] It was also generally not practiced between husband and wife.[2][3]

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.

The modern concept of love owes a great deal to the Humanist tradition of the Renaissance. The humanists focused on perfection and exaltation of this life as opposed to the afterlife. In Tristan and Iseult the seeds of Renaissance love are present in the Middle Ages. To the modern eye, it is a mystery how the period of the Middle Ages produced the seeds of the diametrically opposite Renaissance. Yet it is necessary to understand this transformation if one is to fully comprehend the forces that helped produce the modern consciousness. Courtly Love is a transitional concept that emerged in the Middle Ages. It is transitional because it emerged early and acknowledges God as the creator of love,