In the twelfth century, courtly love was all the rage with the French nobility. To participate in this trendiest of trends, though, you actually needed to know the rules.
Caught in Love’s Grip: Passion and Moral Agency in French Courtly Romance
August 12, 2014 By
French royal courts in the late twelfth century were absolutely smitten with love. Troubadaours traveled from place to place reciting stories of knights and the ladies they wooed.
The True Characters of Criseyde and of Diomede in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde: A Restoration of the Reputations of Two Misunderstood Characters Unjustly Maligned in Literary Criticism
September 8, 2012 By
This is a defence of the characters of Criseyde and of Diomede based, inter alia, on a close textual analysis.
Love, Marriage, and Happiness: Changing Systems of Desire in Fourteenth-Century England
February 14, 2012 By
It is my intention not only to explore the discourse of love and desire in the fourteenth century, but also to examine how the ideas have been altered from those present in the Anglo-Norman and Latin material that was written or widely read in twelfth-century England and what pressures and influences may have brought about these changes.
The science of love in the Middle Ages, the romantic period, and our own time
January 10, 2012 By
I begin with a number of fascinating and difficult questions. Why did man originally create, and why does he continue to create, works on the “science of love”?
Beyond Beatrice: from Love Poetry to a Poetry of Love
October 9, 2011 By
Beyond Beatrice: from Love Poetry to a Poetry of Love By Brian Reynolds Paper given at the Fu Jen Fourth Annual Medieval Conference: Chivalry and Knighthood in Middle Ages (2003) Introduction: In this essay I shall consider how Dante combines elements from the Marian tradition with the conventions of courtly love in drawing together literary, […]
The Concept of Courtly Love as an Impediment to the Understanding of Medieval Texts
October 30, 2010 By
I have never been convinced that there was any such thing as what is usually called courtly love during the Middle Ages. However, it is obvious that courtly love does exist in modern scholarship and criticism, and that the idea appeals to a great many people today.
Get a Room: Private Space and Private People in Old French and Middle English Love Stories
October 6, 2010 By
This study explores the way in which one circumstance of daily life in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries—the relative scarcity of private space—influenced the literature of courtly love.
How you can Follow Us!