The Art of Court Love in - Literature review Example

RESEARCH PAPER ANALYZING LITERARY WORKS OF WEST EUROPEAN MEDIEVAL POETS AND Unlike the 13th and 14th centurywriters and poets, Guillarme de Lorris, Jean de Meun, Geoffrey Chaucer, Chretien de Toyes, and Marie de France, Andreas Capellanus, narrowly focused on the worldly concept of love. However, he failed to capture the essence of fate in a romantic relationship between two lovers in that he omits the influential role of divine intervention and deeply rooted psychological motivations in determining the destiny of a romantic relationship. He addresses the emotional constituents of retaining a love once it is acquired in book two, chapter 1 of his book, the art of courtly love. In most cases, romantic relationships can be determined by divine intervention, regardless of whether the principles of courtly love are followed or not. Rules of conduct may hold true to the sustenance of the love between a man and his beloved on an emotional scale. However, they lack the means to explain how fortune and one’s psychological impetus may affect the outcome of a romanticized relationship. Other romantic works offer a complete outlook on what constitutes the fate of lovers’ relationship such as in Marie de France (Burgess,101). It contains multiple elements of Courtly love in romance between Eliduc and the princess. Their relationship is propagated by the fact that he is far from his wife. Even after he returns to Brittany, he cannot avoid remembering about his lover, a state that causes his wife to have many worries. Distance and Eliduc’s wife are obstacles to the growth of their love (Levi, 45). Their relationship could not sprout, as they wanted until there was intervention from God through Eliduc’s wife. When Guilladun death seriously affects her husband, she offers to intervene with the help of a number of miraculous proportions propagated by God through the wife. The deciding factor of their romantic love comes towards the end of the story where God intervenes and helps in reviving the princess. Later in the story, their romantic relationship becomes a success story due to intervention by God. She is aware of how much the relationship causes merry to her husband, which is the reason she plays a major role in reviving the princess’ life. She is also willing to let go her marriage rights so that the two can be together. It is evident that a true lover considers nothing good except what he thinks will please his beloved (Parry 54). However, the three lastly are tied together in a marriage relationship, where they live happily. In the romance of Rose, Amand d’Avigny associated Alexandria with the smell of roses because it proved a certain aspect of desire. He continually looked at the sweet face and vowed never to let her be taken from his side (Guillaume 21). Despite having many continued trials to have her by his side, he still failed. Their relationship became successful after various interventions by demi-gods. The rose is enclosed in a garden where the lover meets the goddess of love in his quest to find love. The lover’s mission of acquiring the rose proves extremely difficult since he is faced with many sufferings. He has undergone various sufferings and continued adventures so that he could posses the rose but he was never successful. However, with the help of Cupid, he is able to achieve his desires and acquires the rose. Despite that, their story was as par the rules in the art courtly of love there was need for intervention, which was done by Cupid. It is shown that no one can love unless he is impelled to do so by the persuasion of love (Parry 77). Alex is encouraged to fight to the end by the feelings he has in his heart. In the end, Alex is able to attain his object of desire that is his woman portrayed as the rose. In the art of court love, a man does everything that is available to acquire the attention of his love. This is the reason Alex finds all possible solutions to acquiring his love even to the extent of involving a multiple of demi-Gods. Probably, he is aware that love attained easily is of very little value. This could be another reason that keeps him fighting for their love hoping that it will last and have great value. In the art of court of love, when love diminishes it rarely revives. Criseyde is not in favor of love because of the hardships she underwent due to losing both her husband and her father (Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde 66). She does not bring her heart to love since she has had to put up with lost love. The death of her husband brought a lot of harm and was detrimental to her psyche. In addition to this, the departure of her father causes more harm and damages her psychological approach. However, when love dies, a widowhood of two years is required of the survivor. After sometime, she had to give in to love, which she does to Troilus. Love is always increasing or decreasing (Parry 31). The meetings between Troilus and Criseyde cause their love to flourish. However, after their separation for quite along period, their love continually decreases to the extent that she gives herself to another person. This shows that courtly love is not always enough for a romantic relationship to end up well. Since there lacked any elaborate intervention for their love, they ended up losing it. For this reason, it is important to understand that courtly love is not the only reason to a successful relation; intervention can too. In sir Ywain’s psychoanalysis, his character is a great contribution to the weakening of their relationship (Troyes 17). His character is describes as that or a proud male and does not let the characters love to flourish. In the art of court love, good character alone can make a man worthy of love (Parry 45). Even for two days, the woman could not stand the man’s character, which is approve that his character was not worthy of any love. Work cited Burgess, Glyn S. The Lais of Marie de France. Chicago: Penguin Books , 1990. Print. Chaucer, Geoffrey. Troilus and Criseyde. Washington: Penguin Publishers, 2001. Print. Troilus and Criseyde. New York: Kessinger Publishing, 2004. Print. Guillaume. The Romance of the Rose. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Print. Henryson, Robert. The Story of Troilus. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001. Print. Levi, Ezio. Eliduc. Chicago: Sansoni Publisher, 2000. Print. Parry, John Jay. The art of courtly love. Columbia: Columbia University Press, 1990 . Print. Sweeney, Michelle. Magic in medieval romance. New York: Four Courts Press, 2000. Print. Troyes, Chretien de. Yvain; Or, the Knight with the Lion. New York: University of Georgia Press, 1999. Print. Read More