A Brief Description of the Concept of Courtly Love

For a brief description of the concept of â€Å"courtly love†, a few characteristics must be highlighted. Courtly love appeared in Provence (southern France) in the eleventh century. It consists on the expression of love in its most sincere, chivalric and noble form. It tended to be chaste and adulterous. It was also secret and, in general, always took place between the members of the higher classes of society. Andreas Capellanus defines it in The Art of Courtly Love as â€Å"the pure love which binds together the hearts of two lovers with every feeling of delight. This kind consists on the contemplation of the mind and the affection of the heart; it goes as far as the kiss and the embrace and the modest contact with the nude lover, omitting the final solace, for that is not permitted for those who wish to love purely. [†¦] That is called mixed love which gets its effect from every delight of the flesh and culminates in the final act of Venus† (p.122). In Capellanu s’ definition, it seems to me, that the previous elements mentioned are placed out of the game of love, as long as we consider courtly love to be expressed by the total submission of a young man towards his lady. The fulfilment of the souls in courtly love can rarely be obtained, because there is no equality in the relationship of the individuals. The lover’s love is immanently pure, genuine in essence, but the beloved is usually characterized as unachievable because her self is so perfect that there is not much the lover canShow MoreRelated Francescas Style in Canto V of Dantes Inferno Essay5060 Words   |  21 Pagesis a confession that serves only as a sign that identifies and seals their eternal fates. The brief and compressed description of Minos and his  «offizio » would suggest that this confession of the sinners is largely a formal requirement full of sound and fury signifying only the level of their eternal degradation. Minos is not caught up in the sinne rs confessions, and, indeed, Dantes concise description of the entire process of confession and judgment ( «dicono e odono e poi son già ¹ volte », v. 15)Read MoreAnglo-Saxon Heroic Poetry5673 Words   |  23 Pages(he may have a commitatus, or group of noble followers with whom he grew up), he undertakes a task that no one else dare attempt. 6.Whatever virtues his race most prizes, these, the epic hero as a cultural exemplar, possesses in abundance. 7.The concept of arà ªte (Greek for bringing virtue to perfection) is crucial to understanding the epic protagonist. 8.The hero gains little honor by slaying a lesser mortal, but only by challenging heroes like himself or adversaries of superhuman power. 9.TheRead MoreFigurative Language and the Canterbury Tales13472 Words   |  54 Pagessnouts toward the rim of the hills, the planes raked the underbrush with gunfire. †¢ ..and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. -Abraham Lincoln 11. aubade: a poem about dawn; a morning love-song; or a poem about the parting of lovers at dawn 12. ballad: a song, transmitted orally, which tells a story. Usually narrator begins with a climactic or traumatic episode, tells the story tersely by means of action and dialogue and tells it withoutRead MoreWho Goes with Fergus11452 Words   |  46 PagesWho Goes With Fergus This poem is about the dichotomy of the thinker and the actor. Yeats, in love with Maud Gonne, was the thinker, the courtly lover -- the one who would brood upon loves bitter mystery. Yeats was Mr. Nice Guy. Yet Yeats wanted to be the actor - the alpha male - the Fergus. Note the sexualized subtext that permeates the poem, who will pierce the deep woods woven shade? Who will drive with Fergus. Finally, we get the reasons to be the alpha male - the man of action, in the