Post by Arthur on Dec 4, 2010 9:13:02 GMT -6
Though Courtly love did not evolve until the Middle Ages, and the "Unto Britannia" storyline takes place in the 5th century AD, we shall use Courtly love in its early stages of development and focus in on the qualities of Infidelity. So with this I am offering some Periodic resources of Courtly Love.
Use your imagination and have fun !!
Properly applied, the phrase l'amour courtois identified an extravagantly artificial and stylized relationship--a forbidden affair that was characterized by five main attributes. In essence, the relationship was:
Aristocratic. As its name implies, courtly love was practiced by noble lords and ladies; its proper milieu was the royal palace or court.
Ritualistic. Couples engaged in a courtly relationship conventionally exchanged gifts and tokens of their affair. The lady was wooed according to elaborate conventions of etiquette (cf. "courtship" and "courtesy") and was the constant recipient of songs, poems, bouquets, sweet favors, and ceremonial gestures. For all these gentle and painstaking attentions on the part of her lover, she need only return a short hint of approval, a mere shadow of affection. After all, she was the exalted domina--the commanding "mistress" of the affair; he was but her servus--a lowly but faithful servant.
Secret. Courtly lovers were pledged to strict secrecy. The foundation for their affair--indeed the source of its special aura and electricity--was that the rest of the world (except for a few confidantes or go-betweens) was excluded. In effect, the lovers composed a universe unto themselves--a special world with its own places (e.g., the secret rendezvous), rules, codes, and commandments.
Adulterous. "Fine love"--almost by definition--was extramarital. Indeed one of its principle attractions was that it offered an escape from the dull routines and boring confinements of noble marriage (which was typically little more than a political or economic alliance for the purpose of producing royal offspring). The troubadours themselves scoffed at marriage, regarding it as a glorified religious swindle. In its place they exalted their own ideal of a disciplined and decorous carnal relationship whose ultimate objective was not crude physical satisfaction, but a sublime and sensual intimacy.
Literary. Before it established itself as a popular real-life activity, courtly love first gained attention as a subject and theme in imaginative literature. Ardent knights, that is to say, and their passionately adored ladies were already popular figures in song and fable before they began spawning a host of real-life imitators in the palace halls and boudoirs of medieval Europe. (Note: Even the word "romance"--from Old French romanz--began life as the name for a narrative poem about chivalric heroes. Only later was the term applied to the distinctive love relationship commonly featured in such poems.)
Distinguished from the spiritualized sense of love as caritas, was the more worldly sense of love which was referred to as amor. The men and women of the Middle Ages, like people everywhere from the beginning of recorded history, were caught up by love in its many earthly forms and variations. Amor signified the love of things of this world--money, power, possessions, other men and women--things which, however attractive and compelling, were by their own natures fragile and short-lived. Despite these drawbacks, money and possessions were ardently pursued during the Middle Ages, and so, of course, was romantic love. When the pursuit of human love expressed itself in literature, it often appeared in the form we now call courtly love, a term coined in the late nineteenth century to describe a loose set of literary conventions associated almost exclusively with the aristocracy and their imitators.
Courtly love as a literary phenomenon reflects one of the most far-reaching revolutions in social sensibility in Western culture--the dramatic change in attitude towards women that began in the late eleventh century, spread throughout western and northern Europe during the twelfth century, and lingered through the Renaissance and on into the modern world where traces can still be found. In its essential nature, courtly love, or fin' amors, as the Provencal poets called it, was the expression of the knightly worship of a refining ideal embodied in the person of the beloved. Only a truly noble nature could generate and nurture such a love; only a woman of magnanimity of spirit was a worthy object. The act of loving was in itself ennobling and refining, the means to the fullest expression of what was potentially fine and elevated in human nature.
More often than not, such a love expressed itself in terms that were feudal and religious. Thus, just as a vassal was expected to honor and serve his lord, so a lover was expected to serve his lady, to obey her commands, and to gratify her merest whims. Absolute obedience and unswerving loyalty were critical. To incur the displeasure of one's lady was to be cast into the void, beyond all light, warmth, and possibility of life. And just as the feudal lord stood above and beyond his vassal, so the lady occupied a more celestial sphere than that of her lover. Customarily she seemed remote and haughty, imperious and difficult to please. She expected to be served and wooed, minutely and at great length. If gratified by the ardors of her lover-servant, she might at length grant him her special notice; in exceptional circumstances, she might even grant him that last, longed-for favor. Physical consummation of love, however, was not obligatory. What was important was the prolonged and exalting experience of being in love.
It was usually one of the assumptions of courtly love that the lady in question was married, thus establishing the triangular pattern of lover-lady-jealous husband. This meant that the affair was at least potentially adulterous, and had to be conducted in an atmosphere of secrecy and danger. The absolute discretion of the lover was therefore indispensable if the honor of the lady were to be preserved. Though the convention did not stipulate adultery as a sine qua non, it is nevertheless true that the two great patterns of courtly love in the Middle Ages--Tristan and Isolt and Lancelot and Guenevere--both involved women who deceived their husbands.
What practical effect did the convention of courtly love have on the situation of women in the Middle Ages? Very little, if we are to believe social historians, who point out that there is no evidence to show that the legal and economic position of women was materially enhanced in any way that can be attributed to the influence of fin' amors. In a broader cultural context, however, it is possible to discern two long range effects of courtly love on western civilization. For one thing, it provided Europe with a refined and elevated language with which to describe the phenomenology of love. For another, it was a significant factor in the augmented social role of women. Life sometimes has a way of imitating art, and there is little doubt that the aristocratic men and women of the Middle Ages began to act out in their own loves the pattern of courtly behavior they read about in the fictional romances and love lyrics of the period. The social effect was to accord women preeminence in the great, central, human activity of courtship and marriage. Thus women became more than just beloved objects--haughty, demanding, mysterious; they became, in a very real sense, what they have remained ever since, the chief arbiters of the game of love and the impresarios of refined passion.
Toward the end of the Middle Ages, in the work of Dante and other poets of the fourteenth century, the distinction between amor and caritas became blurred. Chaucer's Prioress ironically wears a brooch on which is inscribed, "Amor Vincit Omnia" ("Love Conquers All"). The secular imagery of courtly love was used in religious poems in praise of the Virgin Mary. The lover with "a gentle heart," as in a poem by Guido Guinizelli, could be led through a vision of feminine beauty to a vision of heavenly grace. One of Dante's greatest achievements was to turn his beloved, seen primarily in physical, worldly, courtly love terms in his early work, La Vita Nuova, into the abstract, spiritualized, religious figure of Beatrice in The Divine Comedy.
Adapted from A Guide to the Study of Literature: A Companion Text for Core Studies 6, Landmarks of Literature, ©English Department, Brooklyn College.
Use your imagination and have fun !!
What is Courtly Love?
Properly applied, the phrase l'amour courtois identified an extravagantly artificial and stylized relationship--a forbidden affair that was characterized by five main attributes. In essence, the relationship was:
Aristocratic. As its name implies, courtly love was practiced by noble lords and ladies; its proper milieu was the royal palace or court.
Ritualistic. Couples engaged in a courtly relationship conventionally exchanged gifts and tokens of their affair. The lady was wooed according to elaborate conventions of etiquette (cf. "courtship" and "courtesy") and was the constant recipient of songs, poems, bouquets, sweet favors, and ceremonial gestures. For all these gentle and painstaking attentions on the part of her lover, she need only return a short hint of approval, a mere shadow of affection. After all, she was the exalted domina--the commanding "mistress" of the affair; he was but her servus--a lowly but faithful servant.
Secret. Courtly lovers were pledged to strict secrecy. The foundation for their affair--indeed the source of its special aura and electricity--was that the rest of the world (except for a few confidantes or go-betweens) was excluded. In effect, the lovers composed a universe unto themselves--a special world with its own places (e.g., the secret rendezvous), rules, codes, and commandments.
Adulterous. "Fine love"--almost by definition--was extramarital. Indeed one of its principle attractions was that it offered an escape from the dull routines and boring confinements of noble marriage (which was typically little more than a political or economic alliance for the purpose of producing royal offspring). The troubadours themselves scoffed at marriage, regarding it as a glorified religious swindle. In its place they exalted their own ideal of a disciplined and decorous carnal relationship whose ultimate objective was not crude physical satisfaction, but a sublime and sensual intimacy.
Literary. Before it established itself as a popular real-life activity, courtly love first gained attention as a subject and theme in imaginative literature. Ardent knights, that is to say, and their passionately adored ladies were already popular figures in song and fable before they began spawning a host of real-life imitators in the palace halls and boudoirs of medieval Europe. (Note: Even the word "romance"--from Old French romanz--began life as the name for a narrative poem about chivalric heroes. Only later was the term applied to the distinctive love relationship commonly featured in such poems.)
"If tournaments were an acting-out of chivalry, courtly love was its dreamland. Courtly love was understood by its contemporaries to be love for its own sake, romantic love, true love, physical love, unassociated with property or family . . . focused on another man's wife, since only such an illicit liaison could have no other aim but love alone. . . . As formulated by chivalry, romance was pictured as extra-marital because love was considered irrelevant to marriage, was indeed discouraged in order not to get in the way of dynastic arrangements.
As its justification, courtly love was considered to ennoble a man, to improve him in every way. It would make him concerned to show an example of goodness, to do his utmost to preserve honor, never letting dishonor touch himself or the lady he loved. On a lower scale, it would lead him to keep his teeth and nails clean, his clothes rich and well groomed, his conversation witty and amusing, his manners courteous to all, curbing arrogance and coarseness, never brawling in a lady's presence. Above all, it would make him more valiant, more preux; that was the basic premise. He would be inspired to greater prowess, would win more victories in tournaments, rise above himself in courage and daring, become, as Froissart said, 'worth two men.' Guided by this theory, woman's status improved, less for her own sake than as the inspirer of male glory, a higher function than being merely a sexual object, a breeder of children, or a conveyor of property.
"The chivalric love affair moved from worship through declaration of passionate devotion, virtuous rejection by the lady, renewed wooing with oaths of eternal fealty, moans of approaching death from unsatisfied desire, heroic deeds of valor which won the lady's heart by prowess, [very rarely] consummation of the secret love, followed by endless adventures and subterfuges to a tragic denouement. . . . It remained artificial, a literary convention, a fantasy . . . more for purposes of discussion than for every day practice." Barbara Tuchman - A Distant Mirror
"I hold that a gentleman of worth, who is in love, ought to be sincere and truthful in this [labor] as in all other things; and it if it is true that to betray an enemy is baseness and a most abominable wrong, think how much more grave the offense ought to be considered when done to one whom we love. And I believe that every gentle lover endures so many toils, so many vigils, exposes himself to so many dangers, sheds so many tears, uses so many ways and means to please his lady love--not chiefly in order to possess her body, but to take the fortress of her mind and to break those hardest diamonds and melt that cold ice, which are often found in the tender breasts of women And this I believe is the true and sound pleasure and the goal aimed at by every noble heart. Certainly, if I were in love, I should wish rather to be sure that she whom I served returned my love from her heart and had given me her inner self--if I had no other satisfaction from her--than to take all pleasure with her against her will; for in such a case I should consider myself master merely of a lifeless body. Hence, those who pursue their desires by these tricks, which might perhaps rather be called treacheries than tricks, do wrong to others, nor do they gain that satisfaction withal which is sought in love if they possess the body without the will. I say the same of certain others who in their love make use of enchantments, charms, sometimes force, sometimes sleeping potions, and such things. And you must know that gifts do much to lessen the pleasures of love; for a man can suspect that he is not loved but that his lady makes a show of loving him in order to gain something by it. Hence, you see that the love of some great lady is prized because it seems that it cannot arise from any other source save that of real and true affection, nor is it to be thought that so great a lady would ever pretend to love an inferior if she did not really love him." --The Book of the Courtier, Book 2, Paragraph 94.
Caritas Versus Amor
Distinguished from the spiritualized sense of love as caritas, was the more worldly sense of love which was referred to as amor. The men and women of the Middle Ages, like people everywhere from the beginning of recorded history, were caught up by love in its many earthly forms and variations. Amor signified the love of things of this world--money, power, possessions, other men and women--things which, however attractive and compelling, were by their own natures fragile and short-lived. Despite these drawbacks, money and possessions were ardently pursued during the Middle Ages, and so, of course, was romantic love. When the pursuit of human love expressed itself in literature, it often appeared in the form we now call courtly love, a term coined in the late nineteenth century to describe a loose set of literary conventions associated almost exclusively with the aristocracy and their imitators.
Courtly Love
Courtly love as a literary phenomenon reflects one of the most far-reaching revolutions in social sensibility in Western culture--the dramatic change in attitude towards women that began in the late eleventh century, spread throughout western and northern Europe during the twelfth century, and lingered through the Renaissance and on into the modern world where traces can still be found. In its essential nature, courtly love, or fin' amors, as the Provencal poets called it, was the expression of the knightly worship of a refining ideal embodied in the person of the beloved. Only a truly noble nature could generate and nurture such a love; only a woman of magnanimity of spirit was a worthy object. The act of loving was in itself ennobling and refining, the means to the fullest expression of what was potentially fine and elevated in human nature.
More often than not, such a love expressed itself in terms that were feudal and religious. Thus, just as a vassal was expected to honor and serve his lord, so a lover was expected to serve his lady, to obey her commands, and to gratify her merest whims. Absolute obedience and unswerving loyalty were critical. To incur the displeasure of one's lady was to be cast into the void, beyond all light, warmth, and possibility of life. And just as the feudal lord stood above and beyond his vassal, so the lady occupied a more celestial sphere than that of her lover. Customarily she seemed remote and haughty, imperious and difficult to please. She expected to be served and wooed, minutely and at great length. If gratified by the ardors of her lover-servant, she might at length grant him her special notice; in exceptional circumstances, she might even grant him that last, longed-for favor. Physical consummation of love, however, was not obligatory. What was important was the prolonged and exalting experience of being in love.
It was usually one of the assumptions of courtly love that the lady in question was married, thus establishing the triangular pattern of lover-lady-jealous husband. This meant that the affair was at least potentially adulterous, and had to be conducted in an atmosphere of secrecy and danger. The absolute discretion of the lover was therefore indispensable if the honor of the lady were to be preserved. Though the convention did not stipulate adultery as a sine qua non, it is nevertheless true that the two great patterns of courtly love in the Middle Ages--Tristan and Isolt and Lancelot and Guenevere--both involved women who deceived their husbands.
Implications of Courtly Love
What practical effect did the convention of courtly love have on the situation of women in the Middle Ages? Very little, if we are to believe social historians, who point out that there is no evidence to show that the legal and economic position of women was materially enhanced in any way that can be attributed to the influence of fin' amors. In a broader cultural context, however, it is possible to discern two long range effects of courtly love on western civilization. For one thing, it provided Europe with a refined and elevated language with which to describe the phenomenology of love. For another, it was a significant factor in the augmented social role of women. Life sometimes has a way of imitating art, and there is little doubt that the aristocratic men and women of the Middle Ages began to act out in their own loves the pattern of courtly behavior they read about in the fictional romances and love lyrics of the period. The social effect was to accord women preeminence in the great, central, human activity of courtship and marriage. Thus women became more than just beloved objects--haughty, demanding, mysterious; they became, in a very real sense, what they have remained ever since, the chief arbiters of the game of love and the impresarios of refined passion.
Toward the end of the Middle Ages, in the work of Dante and other poets of the fourteenth century, the distinction between amor and caritas became blurred. Chaucer's Prioress ironically wears a brooch on which is inscribed, "Amor Vincit Omnia" ("Love Conquers All"). The secular imagery of courtly love was used in religious poems in praise of the Virgin Mary. The lover with "a gentle heart," as in a poem by Guido Guinizelli, could be led through a vision of feminine beauty to a vision of heavenly grace. One of Dante's greatest achievements was to turn his beloved, seen primarily in physical, worldly, courtly love terms in his early work, La Vita Nuova, into the abstract, spiritualized, religious figure of Beatrice in The Divine Comedy.
Adapted from A Guide to the Study of Literature: A Companion Text for Core Studies 6, Landmarks of Literature, ©English Department, Brooklyn College.