Essays on Courtly Love

The Canterbury Tales is one of the greatest pieces of literature because of Chaucer’s story-telling techniques. He weaves together various stories and characters to create this memorable tale that continues to be studied and examined throughout the ages. However, some of the pilgrim’s tales are more engaging to the readers than other ones. For instance, the Knight’s Tale is filled with courtly love, jousting and war scenes, as well as the time honored knight’s code. It can be considered a tale of courtly love as well as an epic due to its writing style. Despite ...

Introduction

Photography is an important aspect used to represent an idea or history of a certain event. Photographs are currently used as a store of history for people and communities in the world. In the society, technological revolution has led to the invention of smart phones with powerful cameras used in photography. Photographs help in the remembrance of past events by keeping memories that cannot be altered. For instance, photography is used in the current society to understand past events such as World War I, World War II, and the American Revolution among many other past historic events in the ...

In “Courtly Love,” Zizek examines the way knight-lady romance was widely ritualized in Europe’s Middle Ages (Zizek 1). The text explores the “courtly love” notion and claims that people began grasping libidinal aspects of courtly love during a period when masochistic couples and masochism emerged. Helen of Troy is a story inspired by Greek mythology and it suggests that Helen was the most beautiful woman of her time. The Trojan War was triggered when Paris abducted her from King Menelaus. She was portrayed as the daughter of Leda and god Zeus. In Zazek’s “Courtly Love,” the woman ...

“On Love,” written by Andreas Capallenus, is about courtly love. It was written in the 11th century. Courtly love is akin to medieval chivalry. However, at that time, courtly love was still more of a fictional idea put forth by Andreas. He wrote of romantic love, which was not the norm at that time. Upper-class marriages were more of arranged unions either to seal deals or preserve nobility and royalty. This presented a desire for romance in most of these unions. Andreas appealed to the upper class to have a love that is fierce in itself, and that inspired ...

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is one of the most famous works not only of the 14th century English literature but of the history of Literature in general. It is the literary creation which is of high importance to the studies of literary criticism as its author managed to create a piece of art which at his time could be understood by all social classes. Actually it was Chaucer’s main aim and we should admit that he did succeed. All the tales from the above mentioned cycle are quite original and interesting but we will try to analyze a ...

Chivalry is a term based on the medieval institution which has an aristocratic military origin of training Individual and offering service to others. Normally it is associated with ideas of knightly, honor, courtly love and virtues. Orders of Chivalry are primarily, a phenomenal history, strange to Christendom of Western Union of the middle ages. Categorically, several institutions have been placed overtime in the order of Chivalry .It is possible to differentiate several phrases in the history of those institutions. The original form of institution in the time of crusade was worthy its name of order since it consisted of people who ...

Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” is a selection of stories that pilgrims use to tell stories that occurred as they traveled to a holy shrine in Canterbury. At first reading, “The Miller’s Tale” and “The Knight’s Tale” appear inconsistent and incomparable. Nevertheless, a closer reading of the two stories shows that the both stories are similar. The elements in the “The Miller’s Tale” reflects those in “The Knight’s Tale”. Arguably, the characters’ identities are different, yet the romance in both tales remains the same to an extent. In essence, the characters are basically the same in the two ...

The medieval times or the middle ages witnessed the inception of the ‘Romance’ literature. This kind of literature was inspired into being by the knights’ usually idealistic courtly love of the noblewomen they interacted with on occasion.

What was model knightly behavior in the 12th and 13th centuries?

Using Chretien as an example, knights were held very highly and they were expected to solve dilemmas, which ranged in nature from psychological to ethical dilemmas. A typical knight had a good grip of combat tactics as well as the ability to display martial prowess in rescuing ladies from monsters, giants, and wicked knights (Greenblatt, 8). Knights, such Alexander’s knights accompanied the ...

Language and Literature is always considered as a gateway through the style and ethics of a period and society. Mediaeval culture is a rich epoch to be evaluated in the light of this consideration. It is the time when the Latin was the language used for manuscripts and the literary works were under careful evaluation of Christian Churches. Much of the literature was prevailed through word of mouth and recorded on paper later in the forms of Welsh legend and Celtic myths. The legends were told in the form of stories carrying the romantic tilt with the courtly of courtly love. King ...

Nobility in the medieval time shad unquestionable value attached to it. Majority of the nobles lived their lives in luxury and were rich beyond the common man’s wildest dreams. The thought of the medieval knights often brings nobility in mind, hence the question whether knights had to emanate from the noble class. Exemplary works by Sir Thomas Malory (1408–1471) recount the marvelous adventures of chivalrous, heroic knights of super-human ability. The knights, abiding by the chivalry's strict codes of honor and demeanor went on quests to fight and defeat monsters and giants, thereby winning favor with a lady. ...

Many of the stories in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales are bawdy or tragic tales of love in some form; characters are always falling in love, getting married, being tricked into getting married, sleeping with married people, and many other permutations of that central theme. In The Canterbury Tales the storytellers seem to focus on love and marriage but their perception of love and marriage seems to be different. For the most part, while love is the domain of men (n terms of the pursuit of amorous or courtly love), marriage is the domain of women (as they use ...

Introduction

“Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart,” is a fascinating story written Chretien de Troyes that explores the themes of courtly love and knightly valor. The story tells the story of the famous Arthurian knight, Launcelot and his love affair with Guinevere. The main action of this classic tale centers on the abduction of Guinevere by the evil Meleagant and the various conquests of Launcelot as he attempts to rescue his lover. A revolving theme of the tale is the struggle that Launcelot faces in trying to balance his duties as a lover and as a knighted warrior. Throughout the tale, the two ...

Introduction

The “Courtly love” described by Andreas Capellanus is an “instructional” manual on love and romance between a man and a woman. It consists of three books that address the etymology of love, dialogues between a man and a woman of different social classes and instructions on how the romantic process should unfold between people of different social classes (Andreas). The love described in the story between Heloise and Abelard is of a different nature. The discussions between Heloise and Abelard are less about romance and courtship and more about exchanging ideas on the role of women in society, religion, and the running of monasteries ...

Reader Response: Chivalry Tale

In the 14th century romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the story revolves around Sir Gawain, one of Arthur’s knights. The romance follows his exploits and attempts to respect the laws concerning chivalry, while overcoming the obstacles and temptations that would prevent him for obeying the laws of the knights’ code of conduct. Sir Gawain proves his courage when he dares to strike the Green Knight with an axe, but then he has to pass other tests in order to prove his worth as a knight, his honourable character and his moral value. It is a story of ...

Introduction – Thesis Statement

On the edge of discovering life, two youngsters from Verona fall in love for each other. The act of love that unites them generates various difficulties that determine the resistance of their families and friends to their relationship. Too young to know how to handle or control the difficulties of life, Rome and Juliet devoted to one another with love and passion, forgetting about everything, being solely concerned about their loving feelings. Love and passion are two strong themes that reside from William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, two strong and intense feelings that initiate the tragic act of the double ...

Question D

Chaucer uses The Canterbury Tales to mock the society of the Medieval Era. The miller’s tale is crude and is a drunk and his tale is insulting to his company, especially when he does not acknowledge his rank and speaks out of turn. Throughout time the English society has always acknowledge status; it is everything England and a true English know his or her class in society and abides by it. Chaucer uses the miller to defy the ranking in the British society. Not only does he speak out of turn but his tale is crass. Despite the crudeness ...

There are some who may believe that the Middle Ages was severely lacking in cultural expression - that "There was no creative thinking and writing, no artistic expression, and no developments in science and technology" during that period. This can be attributed to the perspective that the Middle Ages consisted primarily of a feudal system that put down the poor at the expense of the rich; also, events such as the Black Plague tore a hole through Europe so wide that it is thought people simply did not have the time or the education to engage in artistic or creative endeavors. ...

The medieval world conceived of itself and its universe as “a great chain of being” which was bound together by “love, also called caritas or charity.” This was a spiritualized sense of love, and was distinguished from amor – “the love of things of this world.” When human romantic love was presented in literature it appeared in medieval romances, which came to exemplify ‘courtly love’ – a term not used until the 19th century. The origins of the word ‘romance’ are interesting. It referred to works written in ‘romanz’ or French – the language which had developed in France from Latin, the language spoken ...