Courtly Love
As truth be told we try to complete
the end of the story to see the
ending result. Real life will never
arranges itself exactly like a
romance. So enjoy every moment
until the end of the story because
the memories before the fairy tale
ending are worth making. Before
there were cell phones and
computers men used to show
their devotion to a woman with
matters of the heart, and of hope.
Their futures were intertwined in
the erotic desire, and loyalty
expressed with the heart’s
content. During courtship a
woman is in control of the
relationship where a man’s
obedience and submission
inspires him to do great deeds.
Back in the day men would
express their emotions, but in
today’s society we find that men
are to appear as masculine and
factual. Where has all the
romance gone or has romance
hasn’t left its just changed form.
Ideal Love
History
• In 1168, Eleanor of
Aquitaine left the court of
her husband Henry II and
took up residence in her
ancestral lands of Poitou.
Having served as viceregent
for the king in England, she
had no difficulty pursuing
her duties as a ruling
duchess, and she wielded
the power of a feudal lord
and accepted the
responsibilities that went
with it. With a deft hand and
a discerning eye, she turned
a district that had been on
the outskirts of events for
forty years into the center of
economic and social life.
• As a result of this sudden
burst of activity, Eleanor's
court in the city of Poitiers
drew vassals paying
homage, squires training to
be knights, young ladies
acquiring their education,
and visiting future kings and
queens related by blood or
marriage to the duchess.
Because she was a woman
of renowned beauty, charm
and style as well as
extraordinary wit and iron
will, the poets, chroniclers,
musicians, philosophers,
artists, who always flocked
around her also congregated
at Poitiers. It was out of
royalty and romance that the
movement of courtly love
emerged.
Eleanor of Aquitaine
The Stages of Courtly Love
• Attraction to the lady, usually via eyes/glance
• Worship of the lady from afar
• Declaration of passionate devotion
• Virtuous rejection by the lady
• Renewed wooing with oaths of virtue and eternal fealty
• Moans of approaching death from unsatisfied desire (and other
physical manifestations of lovesickness)
• Heroic deeds of valor which win the lady's heart
• Consummation of the secret love
• Endless adventures and subterfuges avoiding detection
The Twelve Rules of Love from The
Art of Courtly Love by Andreas
Capellanus
• 1. Thou shalt avoid avarice like the
deadly pestilence and shalt embrace its
opposite.
• 2. Thou shalt keep thyself chaste for the
sake of her whom thou lovest.
• 3. Thou shalt not knowingly strive to
break up a correct love affair that
someone else is engaged in.
• 4. Thou shalt not chose for thy love
anyone whom a natural sense of shame
forbids thee to marry.
• 5. Be mindful completely to avoid
falsehood.
Rules continued
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6. Thou shalt not have many who
know of thy love affair.
7. Being obedient in all things to the
commands of ladies, thou shalt ever
strive to ally thyself to the service of
Love.
8. In giving and receiving love's
solaces let modesty be ever present.
9. Thou shalt speak no evil.
10. Thou shalt not be a revealer of
love affairs.
11. Thou shalt be in all things polite
and courteous.
12. In practicing the solaces of love
thou shalt not exceed the desires of
thy lover.
Six "Not so good" Things About
Courtly Love
• 1. Unrealistic
• Typically the courtly love relationship was not between husband
and wife.
• 2. Adulterous
• Although this aspect bothers modern readers more than past
readers.
• 3. Put women on an inaccessible pedestal
• 4. In some situations, it enabled the knight from reaching his
full potential.
• - Ex: Guinevere and Lancelot
• 5. Distraction
• 6. Suffering symptoms of love
The Literary Convention of
Courtly Love
• - In France and England, courtly love became a
central theme of lyric and epic poetry.
• - The literary convention of courtly love appears
in works of most of the major authors of the
Middle Ages including Geoffrey Chaucer
(Canterbury Tales).
• - Courtly love conventions are found in the
medieval genres of lyric, the allegory and the
Romance (such as Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight)
The Literary Convention of
Courtly Love cont.
• In the 12th century, literature written in
French was referred to as "romance" to
differentiate it from "real" literature,
which was written in Latin.
• - Eventually, the term "romance" began
to refer not to any literature written in
French, but to the specific sort of
literature that was popular among the
French-speaking court audiences of
France and Anglo-Norman England:
stories of the chivalric adventures of
knights and their ladies.
• - There have been debates about whether
courtly love was a social reality or simply
a literary fiction. Regardless, it was a
widespread and significant notion.
Courtly Love in Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight
• - Some argue that in Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight, the poet’s term “courtesy”
can be likened to the idea of courtly love.
• - Authors did not necessarily use the term
“courtly love”, but it is a useful modern
label for this idea, one that appears
frequently in medieval literature.
• - The ideals of courtly love were often
contrary to Christian moral codes. As a
perfect knight in the service of the Virgin
Mary, Gawain is caught in the tension
between courtly love’s code of behavior,
the expectations of duty and courtesy, and
the strict moral demands of Christianity.
•
- In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir
Gawain must respect both the laws
concerning courtly love and the laws of
chivalry.
•
- The knight’s code of honor requires that
Sir Gawain do whatever a lady asks, and
because of this Gawain must accept the
girdle from the Lady, but he must also keep
the promise he has made to his host that he
will give whatever he gains that day.
•
- When Gawain chooses to keep the girdle,
he is breaking his promise to the host but
honoring the lady. After learning that the
Green Knight is actually his host, Gawain
realizes that even though he has
accomplished his quest, he has failed to be
virtuous.
•
- This demonstrates the conflict between
honor and knightly duties. By breaking his
promise, Gawain believes he has lost his
honor and failed in his duties.
The Feminist Perspective
• What is feminism?
• A feminist describing it in her own words:
• When I think of being a feminist advocate it means working for
equality in many areas. It means working for equality across
lines of race,gender, class, age, and sexuality, because women
are represented and affected by these forms of discrimination.
Creating a society with justice and equality for all necessitates
advocacy in all these areas, not simply a blindsided focus on
what some may deem "women's issues". For me, equality for
everyone is a "women's rights issue". As women we are
members of society, a society ingrained with prejudice and
discrimination, be it based on gender or race,class,or sexuality.
These inequalities affect all of us, and for me, feminism is about
ending those inequalities in every form they take. I want
equality in every aspect of my life, and I don't think that makes
it an equal rights issue rather than a feminist issue. If my goals
to promote equality include equality between the genders then,
to me, it's feminist. -Anonymous User of Feministing.com
Relevancy: How is feminism related to
early English literature?
 Feminist critiques shed light on the gap in perspective of
the “female” category in any medium.
 Given that male clerics were the probably the authors of
most of the pieces we are reading, the female perspective
is lacking.
 Without the female perspective, traditions that may be
harmful for women, such as courtly love continue in
different forms.
Masculine Images
• Physically strong hero/
• protector
• Wise father figure.
• Super lover extraordinaire
Men’s Images of Women
• Aloof princess in a tower
• Emitter of life.
• Virginal and sweet. (The MadonnaWhore complex)
Arguments a Feminist Might Make
• Against the male hero: Why are the majority of known heroes men? It
may be that women were not in a position for heroics.
 Against the father: If the father knows best, why are there so many
accounts of violence being part of their parenting or lack thereof?
 Against the male lover: Come on now. Do I really have to spell it out?
Arguments Continued
 Against the princess: Doesn’t placing them on so high and so remote a
pedestal drift into the realm of women as objects?
 Against the mother: Post-partum depression and child abuse from
mothers doesn’t exist?
 Against the virgin: This perception, much like the male equivalent,
relies on categorizing a person solely based on their sexual behavior.
What if the man or woman is a good parent or participant in the
community?
Things to look out for in a medium
• How does the portrayal of a category (sex) interact with how the
“reader” thinks of a person/character?
 Does the person seem to deserve personhood?
 Would a character’s actions be viewed differently if they were a
different sex?
 Is the female perspective simply not there? If so, does it harm the
women that are in the medium?
 Do ideas of sex/gender from the time period of a piece linger into the
present and is that a bad thing? (Misogyny, perhaps?)
 Does any mention of sex-related words lead to the character being a
stereotype?
Application to Courtly Love
• Women as property
 Any moral dubiousness is not the violation of the sanctity of marriage
so much as the other man’s affront to the husband’s ownership of the
wife. Thus, the wife that loses some culpability in wrongdoing because
the primary grievance is between the two men.
More Courtly Love
• Women as divinity
 Courtly love places women on a pedestal, simply for the man to
worship. She is not an individual because any analysis of her stops at
her beauty. The man raises the woman up to a level that she cannot
come down from and interact on a level with the rest of the world.
 Women as inhuman
 When women do act of their own agency, they are “mischievous” or
“manipulative”. (Morgan Le Fay in Gawain?) There is no moral
reasoning behind a woman’s actions, therefore she probably always
means ill. (When she means anything by it at all…)
Modern Love vs. Courtly Love
 Female Archetypes
 Class Distinction
 Similarities
 Differences
Female Archetypes
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Modern:
Personality
Independence
Not looking for love, love finds her
Initial rejection
Growth of love through an external situation
Conflict between being ‘true’ to self and surrendering to affection
Female Archetypes
 Courtly Love:
 Separated into classes, and each class has identifiable characteristics
associated with it
 Marriage
 Initial rejection, but eventual submission through the persuasion of the
man in the steps of courtly love
 Conflict between love, class, and social duties.
Class Distinction
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Courtly Love:
Women divided into three classes:
Middle class
Noblewoman
Woman of High Nobility
Men divided into four classes:
Middle class
Noble
Man of High Nobility
Clerk
Different rhetoric for different classes
Ex. Middle class man partitioning a noblewoman has a different
argument than a middle class man to a middle class woman
 Women of different classes given different levels of cleverness
 More noble, the more clever and thus, the best lover
Class Distinction
 Modern:
 Not a huge compartmentalization
 Rise in personality also bridges gap
between class distinction, especially
because as a majority, there is still an
emphasis on the mind as being more
essential to a relationship than outward
beauty.
Similarities
• Emphasis on character as being the most important aspect of a
prospective lover
 Descriptions of love and ‘symptoms’ of love
 Transcendence of class
 Literature: Rejection, some internal conflict
 Psychology of love
 Mere exposure effect
 Sternberg’s Triangular Love Theory
 Rules of Courtly Love
Differences: Modern Love vs. Courtly
Love
 Different definitions
 Modern: A feeling or disposition of deep affection or fondness for
someone, typically arising from a recognition of attractive qualities,
from natural affinity, or from sympathy and manifesting itself in
concern for the other's welfare and pleasure in his or her presence
(OED)
 Courtly Love: A certain inborn suffering derived from the sight of and
excessive mediation upon the beauty of the opposite sex, which causes
each one to wish above all things the embraces of the other and by
common desire to carry out all of love’s precepts in the other’s embrace
(Capellanus)
Cont.
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Love is not limited to a specific type of person
No courtship rules with the same rigidity
More casual: Man or woman can initiate relationship
Class is not as much of an issue
Emphasis on the man and how to properly courtship
Love doesn’t have to be concealed for it to succeed
No (or very few) arranged marriages
Courtly love: Marriage is not an excuse not to love