Natural and Rational Love in Medieval Literature

Abstract

It is sometimes the case that our understanding of literature is inhibited by the very greatness of the scholars that have sought to explain it to us. An eminent example is to be found in the field of medieval love poetry, for no question is more vexed than that of courtly love. Most of us will have been introduced to the subject in the following manner: Every one has heard of courtly love, and every one knows that it appears quite suddenly at the end of the eleventh century in Languedoc ... The sentiment, of course, is love, but love of a highly specialized sort, whose characteristics may be enumerated as Humility, Courtesy, Adultery, and the Religion of Love.'

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