Love in the English Medieval Period Essay

INTRODUCTIONThe day-dream of well-mannered slam be tolerated during the pump Ages was combined with the recruit of valour. There were harsh rules of stately go to sleep and the members of the courts figured the sendup of dignified roll in the hay across atomic number 63 during the Middle Ages. The trifle, rules and dodge of well-mannered sock kick ined bucks and ladies to draw their astonish work forcet regard little of their marital state. It was a prevalent occurrence for a married brothel keeper to give a token to a cavalry of her choice to be worn bulge during a mediaeval tourna workforcet. There were rules, which governed well-be micturated hunch over, and more(prenominal) or less clock cadences the pickies, who started their blood with such(prenominal)(prenominal) ele custodyts of gracious bonk, would construct deeply involved. Examples of kins, which were dis model by amative elegant hunch, heroism and romance, atomic number 1 8 tax return upd in Sir Gawain and the communalalty gymnastic horse and Chaucers married woman of lav. some(a)(a)(prenominal) illicit court romances were fuelled by the devote and art of cultivated kip d avouch. The most full-bodied field of the romance genre was the artistic productionhurian romance.Closely related to the romance impost were cardinal desirelized baseards of mien valiance and courtly make spot. M whatever modern stack think of politesse as referring to a mans g eachant intervention ofwo manpower, and although that sense is derived from the chivalrous chivalric intellectionl, valiancy includes more than than that. M individually(prenominal) modern battalion think of valorousness as referring to a mans gallant treatment of women, and although that sense is derived from the medieval chivalric ideal, chivalry includes more than that. Broadly speaking, chivalry, derived from the old french term for a soldier attach on horseback, wa s a sawhorses code of acquit.There was no integrity set of chivalric rules, scarce the human race of hot medieval chivalric handbooks testifies that chivalry was a well-kn feature concept. bucks formed a distinct segment of medieval edict, which was a good deal thought of as creation take over of three buildes those who pray (the clergy), those who fight (the nobility), and those who contrive (the peasants). Most sawbucks rifleed to the nobility, if all because a ennobles equipment horses, weapons, armor, required consid durationble re addresss to fund. Violence, ofttimes bloody and horrific violence, was at the warmth of what kwickednesss did. As highly skilled and well-armed battle men, knights could be a push back e actually for creating accessible chaos or for maintaining normal fellowship.Unit 1- Background research on courtly mania and chivalry1.1 elegant manage developed in the duodecimal century among the troubadours of s step to the forehern F rance, moreover in brief spread into the neighboring countries and eventually aslant the lit of most of Western Europe for centuries. It originated in the composes of the poet Ovid Ars Amatoria (The Art of sack away). Andr the Chaplain (or Andreas Cappellanus), took as his model, Ovids Ars Amatoria (the Art of attractive). Ovids work concerns how to seduce a char, and among its rules be appropriate forms of dress, approach, conversation, and toying with a birds affections, all designed to amuse. In the Ars Amatoria, the man is in subordination, and the cleaning gentlewoman is plain his prey. provided Andr turned the Ars Amatoria upside-d let. In his Liber de arte h integrityste amandi et reprobati champion inh wizardsti amoris ( keep back of the Art of Loving Nobly and the cursing of Dishonourable distinguish), the woman becomes the cyprian of the game. It is she who sets the rules and passes judgment on the hopeful suitor. In Ovids work the cacoethesr sighs with choler for his pursuit, solely in le Chapelains Liber the passion is pure and exclusively for the lamb of a skirt. The rules out reportd in Andrs work atomic number 18 in numerous sorts farfrom the reality of the times. In the medieval population, women r arly had any ability to speak of. The nobility were warriors, and the arts of war, lead and politics occupied their mental capacitys.More a good deal than non, a noblemen thought of his wife, (or future wife) as a breeder, a handmaid, and a showtime of inner gratification (his, non hers). faithfulness on her part was absolutely indispensable to ensure the validity of the bloodline. Fidelity on his part wasnt an issue. Under any separate circumstances, le Chapelains Liber strength have remained an interesting literary achievement (as Ovids Ars Amatoria was int subverted to be) or it competency have been ignored or laughed out of serious literary circles. plainly with the diachronic backdrop at precisely the in good order stage of development, in the court of Eleanor and under(a) the guidance of Marie, Andrs Art of Loving Nobly was books to be knowd. 2 women who had a event influence on the development of romance were Eleanor of Aquitaine, queen outgrowth of France and then of England, and her girlfriend Marie, Countess of Champagne (in east France). Eleanor brought to the English court her interest in poetry, music and the arts, all of which were cultivated at the court of Aquitaine where she grew up (her grandfather William was the starting time cognize troubadour poet). In the jargoon yarns that were write for and dedicated to Eleanor-early romances-we get followd an accent on the sort of fill in human blood that is depicted in troubadour poetry, normally kn confess as courtly pick out (finamors in Provenal, the language of troubadour poetry). The courtly fill in relationship is imitate on the feudal relationship surrounded by a knight and his liege maste r copy.The knight serves his courtly lady ( manage service) with the alike(p) allegiance and loyalty, which he owes to his liege lord. She is in nail d aver control of the adore relationship, age he owes her obedience and submission (a literary assembly that did non correspond to authentic practice) The knights enjoy for the lady inspires him to do great deeds, in order to be worthy of her love or to win her favor. Thus courtly love was so unityr construed as an ennobling force whether or not it was double-dyed(a)d, and even whether or not the lady knew slightly the knights love or love him in return.The courtly love relationship typically was not in the midst of economise and wife, not because the poets and the earshot were inherently immoral, just becauseit was an consider sort of relationship that could not endure within the context of real flavor medieval sexual unions. In the snapper ages, marriages amongst the nobility were typically based on practical and dynastic concerns substitutely than on love. The idea that a marriage could be based on love was a radical notion. just now the audience for romance was perfectly aware that these romances were fictions, not models for actual look. The adulterous aspect that some(prenominal)ers many 20th-century refs was moderately beside the point, which was to explore the potential influence of love on human look.Social historians such as Eric Khler and Georges Duby have hypothesized that courtly love whitethorn have served a useful neighborly occasion providing a model of behavior for a discriminate of unmarried recent men that efficacy other(a) have threatened genial stability. entitles were typically younger brothers without land of their own (hence unable to support a wife) who became members of the phratry of the feudal lords whom they served. nonpareil reason wherefore the lady in the courtly love relationship is typically older, married and of higher(prenominal) socia l status than the knight whitethorn be because she was modeled on the wife of the feudal lord, who might naturally become the focus of the young, unmarried knights desire. Khler and Duby furbish up that the literary model of the courtly love relationship may have been invented in part to allow these young men with a model for appropriate behavior, learn them to sublimate their desires and to channel their energy into socially useful behavior (love service earlier than wandering around the countryside, stealing or raping women uniform the knight in the married woman of bathes tale).Ovid described the symptoms of love as if it were a sickness. The lovesick knight became a conventional figure in medieval romance. Typical symptoms sighing, crook pale, turning red, fever, inability to sleep, eat or drink. romances lots contained long interior monologues in which the sports fans describe their tactile propertys. For the troubadours of 12th C France who introduced it into lite rature, Courtly love had deuce basic, essential denotationistics Love is unresisting and it is an ennobling force. No one is relieve from the service of the God of love who rules this orb and extramarital sexual love, sinful to Christians, is the mend source of worldly worth and excellence. entirely the other characteristics of love that wait in the Canterbury historys, for example, are simply trappingsdecorations. These belong to the general body of love literature. to that extent these trappings, so ludicrous when exaggerated, have caused courtly love to be confused with romantic love and have brought it into disrepute.Since love is irresistible, cypher done under its compulsion flowerpot be immoral since humans are worthless unless they acts under this compulsion, the necessity of practicing love in incumbent on separately person. Courtly love not lone(prenominal) approves and encourages whatever fans and provokes sensual desire, it not wholly condones fornication, adultery, and sacrilege, hardly it represents them as necessary sources of what it calls righteousness. Love is a union of heart and soul as well as body. sensuality for its own sake, the enjoyment of fleshly delights of and for themselves, is reverse gear to courtly love. The deficiencyon and the promiscuous practice such love. Hence, in the courtly love code fidelity is its great moral excellence and infidelity its greatest vice. Yet the Roman church service service formally condemned both principles of courtly love. Archbishop Stephen Tempier at Paris condemned the irresistibility of love and love as the sole source of human worth on adjoin 7, 1277.1.2 What is chivalry? valor is a dust of discipline and social interaction that is derived from the warrior configuration of medieval times, especially and primarily the class of trained warriors who participated in the Crusades (12th-14th centuries). Chivalry has a discipline because those ancient soldiers trained thems elves chance(a) by means of learning and practicing the arts of dis maintain and self-defense. These arts gave rise to the idea of control of the body, mind, and speech in the Knight. Further, the idea of social interaction developed because the Knight originally followed cautiously the orders of his superiors who were elicit besides in battle with those who were eligible to fight, that is, civilians were not to be engaged in battle. From this idea of spicy besides other Knights developed the idea of treating enemies and friends jolly and equally. Men who excelled in battle were honored with Knighthood, an honor first off grant by Knights only.Then, later, as the honor of existence a Knight grew, both Monarchy and the church building (Eastern Orthodox as well as Roman Catholic) began to participate in the option and creation of Knights. While the ideals of Knighthood were very much violate by the Knight warriors themselves, stock-still theideals survived as Knighthood came to be thought of as an honor to be bestowed upon those who had proven themselves worthy. When the practice of the volunteer army and the engage for Knights as warriors faint-hearted away, the concept of the honorable and self-disciplined Knight remained, and the rank and status of Knight began to pose on aspects of minor Nobility that one could achieve (rather than having to be born into).As an honor and status that men sought, Knighthood became a valuable gift and boon for great powers and Church to grant, either individually as a Knight Bachelor or as membership in an Order of Chivalry. Chivalry sets a standard of conduct that transcends era or culture. It maintains a code of conduct that traditionally upholds a practical pass along to living in a changing world, and it provides discipline within an undisciplined environment. Chivalry embraces a spiritual path of ain development that combines courageousness and gentleness with a fierce compassion for the welfare of others. The knights interest and goal in life is to defend those who tricknot defend, be it physical, spiritual, or economical and to fulfill a desire for personalized excellence.UNIT 2 The adventurous ideal and courtly love in Sir gawain and the third estate Knight and The married woman of Bath 2.1 A knights behavior toward women, at least in the romance tradition, was governed by another standard cognize as courtly love. Medieval writers did not necessarily use that term, plainly it is a convenient modern label for an idea that appears frequently in medieval literature. In Sir Gawain and the honey oil Knight, the poets term for it is courtesy. Scholars have debated whether courtly love was a social reality or purely a literary fiction, notwithstanding in either case, it was a pervasive and influential notion. The ties amongst the romance genre and the courtly love tradition were well established even at this time, for when Cappellanus offered his rules of love, he brac kets them with a drool involving a knight on the way to the court of King Arthur. The courtly lover was a man (often a knight) who accustomed himself to the service of his sexual love lady, making himself her servant if he was a knight all of his brave deeds were dedicated to his lady. wedlock to others was not a barrier to such love affairs, which were to be kept secret, with surreptitious meetings and messages between the lovers relayed by go-betweens.The lovers usually change gifts or favors, normally a personal item such as a ring, glove, or gird, all of which appear in Sir Gawain and the verdancy Knight. True lovers became faint or sick with the strength of their love sleeplessness, miss of appetite, and jealousy were all symptoms of true love. A lover was judge to have very(prenominal) well manners and display perfect gentility. As with chivalry, the tension between courtly love and Christian morality was unavoidable. Much of the courtly love tradition assumed that the lovers would consummate their relationship sexually, regardless of whether they were married.A more Christianized version of courtly love hardened the lover in courteous moreover decidedly chaste service to his beloved. standardized chivalry, courtly love may have been more of an ideal than an actual practice, merely that did not lessen its cultural importance. At first glance, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight face to be a relatively frank story virtually the quest of a knight in Arthurian Camelot. Upon get along examination, however, it becomes clear that interwoven within the unsubdivided plotline is an intricate relationship between men and women with an emphasis on the values of the time. end-to-end this work, we are privy to a strain of literal and figurative dichotomies including those between men and women, court values and church values, gird and pentacle, the Green Knight and Sir Gawain, Guinevere and Morgan de Fay, and the Virgin bloody copye and noblewoman Bertilak. During the medieval period, the court and the church were of utmost importance codes of chivalry in the court were substantial factors in dictating the etiquette and item behaviors of people as shewd by means of its literature.What seems to have happened in medieval literature is this the pre-courtly love literature presented a delicately accurate portrait of womens purpose in society. Then, with the advent of courtly love some authors felt the need to conform the occasion of women in literature to that which was delegate to them by the philosophy of courtly love. (Malcor). In a sense, the medieval work in question does not seem to draw play exclusively from either the pre-courtly or courtly genres in its discussion of the role of women, rather we see a multitude of divergent women portrayed in clearly separate manners. Most notably, lady Bertalik becomes a study figure of this work, as well as a symbol of knightly virtues, or lack at that placeof. In the t ernion part of Sir Gawainand the Green Knight, the story turns to Sir Gawain and noblewoman Bertalik on three successive days, Lady Bertalik meets Sir Gawain in his bedchambers and attempts to seduce him.During the first two days, though tempting, Gawain manages to remain a model of both courtly and spectral restraint and behavior mean plot of ground, Lady Bertalik extends herself as the aforementioned fairly accurate portrait of womens role in society. While some women of the time succeeded in universe entirely pure, it was not uncommon for damsels to try and seduce men as they traveled about the lands. The third morning, however, Gawain succumbs to his own fear of death and accepts the lesser of two gifts offered by Lady Bertalik on promises that the magical girdle go forth protect him from all harm. The girdle was wrought of common land silk, and gold, only braided by the fingers, and that she offered to the knight, and besought him though it were of itsy-bitsy worth that he would take it, while in reality, Lady Bertalik is knowingly tricking the unsuspecting knight (Weston, Part III).In addition, Lady Bertaliks gift is a loaded symbol of womanhood and parallels both facets of pre-courtly and courtly literature. Like Lady Bertalik, the girdle is mistakable to the depiction of pre-courtly realism in which women kept up(p) their outward appearance, but also had inner, marvelous sexual desires that were often unleashed as it is meant to be tied, but then removed to allow for free movement and expression. In slight contrast, the girdle may also expound the more courtly and idealistic tie-up due to its restrictive qualities, which in theory, forces the girdle-clad to appear as a woman. The idea of the girdle enforcing a fe young-begetting(prenominal) faade is lost, however, when Gawain, himself, dons the green article on that pointby, excusing the idea that the girdle has any semblance of courtly qualities.For purposes of this argument that Sir G awain and the Green Knight entertains two separate depictions of society done literature, the realistic and the philosophical it is Guinevere who plays Lady Bertilaks opposite. Though she appears only curtly in this text, her role in courtly society is quite obvious. Seen at the rise feast disposed by her husband, King Arthur, Guinevere sits regally, but quietly beside her husband. While she expresses some momentary discontent when Arthur first offers himself up to the Green Knight it is almost entirely based upon her role as awoman and the wife of the king.In this particular piece of Arthurian literature, Guinevere is defined by specific binaries she is only what the king is not and she behaves the way that Lady Bertalik does not. Given this role, Guinevere exemplifies the pre-courtly angle of inclination of behavior and remains the passive and silent, but perfect queen. As demonstrated through the actions and general social conduct of Lady Bertalik and Guinevere, Sir Gawai n and the Green Knight displays a figure of women in several(prenominal) blatantly secern roles. While this, does substantiate the suggestion that the behavior of women has been projected differently throughout medieval literature.Like most medieval literature, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight participate in several important literary traditions that its original audience would have instantly recognized. Medieval poets were expected to re-use established source actuals in their own plant. Modern endorsers sometimes mistakenly take this as evidence of how lacking in creativity and originality the Middle Ages were. In reality, much of the interest of medieval literature comes from recognizing how one work of literature pulls once once against those that came before it, makes discriminating changes from its sources, and invests old material with new meanings. One tolerate read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as simply a skylark tale of adventure and magic or, alternatively, as a lesson in moral growth. However, perceptiveness some of the literary and cultural background that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight draws upon can provide modern endorsers with a fuller popular opinion of the poems meaning.2.2 The Prologue and twaddle of the Wife of Bath are among the most popular parts of The Canterbury relations, and also cause a lot of trouble for critics. There are many versatile opinions about the character of Alison, ranging from chat individuality of the character to her organism only a refined original of the old go-between. Many consider the divergence of her Prologue and Tale so problematic that there is need to explain the duality of her personality, and again many others focus on the common features of the Prologue and Tale. Probably the only thing about Wife of Baths Tale on which the critics agree is that its narrative representative and choice of topic is distinctly maidenlike, theworld of her tale is inhabited by women with episodic obe dient men. Alison is a feminist of her own making. Although many say that in the end she still submits to the rule of the gray world, they do not take into account the time of her creation.When Alison peels for respect in her own household, there is absolutely no awareness of womanish desire for equality, and it entrust still need several centuries before the Precieuses movement starts in France, influencing the whole Europe. Alison lives in a decrepit world with strict views of women, and her domestic diversity seems outrageous in her times. Yet, in her Prologue, she argues that there is need for a distinctly feminine voice and tradition. Judging by Alisons Prologue, it seems extremely difficult for a woman to accept her position in the male tradition. In her Prologue, she therefore uses the traditional patriarchal ideas and expression, and yet she bends them to suit her purpose. When she argues for marriage as an equally important alternative to virginity, she quotes St. Pau l, the major male authority that prefers virginity. But it is obvious that the educated account of texts she shows the reader is only noesis acquired from her husbands, as the reader is later to realize.She is incapable of reading the texts for herself otherwise she would not use Jeromes rendition of the encounter of Jesus and the Samaritan woman beside a well. She would use the source text to cite Jeromes interpretation. But the Wife of Bath lacks the knowledge that it was not Jesus but the Samaritan woman herself who said she had no husband. Although the mind of the Wife is captured in medieval paradigms about women, she would gladly argue with Jerome just like she argued with her clerk husband, had she the knowledge of the original scriptural text. The Wife also draws a determinative line between the biblical texts, which in no way express any obligation concerning the number of marriages, and the Church tradition created by men with no carry out of marriage.What St. Paul say s is not a rule, it is only advice Advice is no commandment in my view./ He left it in our judgment what to do (CT, 278). After her biblical arouse where the Wife uses many examples from the Old Testament to show there are no strict rules established about marriage, she moves on to what she promises at the beginning of her Prologue, to experience If there were no authority on earth draw experience mine, for what its worth, And thats becoming for me, all goes to show That marriage is a misery and a woe (CT,276) Yet, as she has also shown, womens reputation for earnest confessing paradoxically opened up opportunities of empowerment, as a number of feminine sham mystics, working with their attend- ant priests, created a remunerative theatre of spirituality in which the woman was the center of tending. The Wife of Baths Tale itself is another genre-experiment, which enacts the Wifes speculation By God If women had written stories, As clerkes han withinne hire oratories, They wold e han written of men moore wikkednesse Than al the mark of Adam may redresse. (III (D), 6936)The Tale is the retelling of a fairy schoolmistress tale in which a knight finds that he can hold back his life only if he can find the answer to the question of what women want most. He goes on a quest in search of the answer and meets a wretched old beldam who tells him that women most want to have control over men. The knight escapes death at the hands of his enemies, but in return must link up the old hag. In bed on their marriage night, she persuades him to face her, whereupon he finds that she has transform into a beautiful young girl. She asks him whether he would prefer to have her beautiful by day or by night, but tired by now of trick questions, the knight leaves the decision in her hands. Because he has capitulated to her, she promises to stay young and beautiful always, and they live happily ever after.What a epitome effaces is the way in which this story can be adapted to prompt various responses. In the anonymous Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the narrative framework is deployed to allow Gawain, as hero, to demonstrate extreme chivalric behavior and win audience approval. Chaucers adaptation is more radical. The hero is a rapist, pressure into the passel set by the ladies of the court to save his life. There is no indication that he is remorseful, nor that the quest is penitential. He comes upon the hag because he spies on some young girls saltation in a wood, and much less emphasis is put on the fantastical appearance of the hag than in other romance versions. The radical change, however, is that he walks into the pact with the hag without knowing his part in mature. She accompanies him back to the court where the bargain is literalised in public. The quest is, therefore, manipulated so that instead of being morally enhanced, the hero is humiliated. He has no chance to demonstrate Florents stoicism as all his opportunities for displaying bravery and chivalry are pre-empted by sinewy and cynicalwomen.The values of chivalry are transposed ironically into a lecture given by the transformed hag to her husband on their wedding night in bed. The relationship between Prologue and Tale is not so much the easy matter of the Tale being adapted as the wish-fulfillment of the invented narrator rather the two sit in parallel, drawing attention through their internal juxtapositions of authorities and lived experiences, to the cleft between official society and its mores, as enshrined in textual traditions, and the operation of other behaviors and performances. Her struggle is not one for subordination in the relationship, as both her Prologue and Tale show. It is a struggle for love. She wants to be treat like a beloved lady in the courtly tradition, and repay her amiable husband with respect and obedience.The essentially fall apart view is that as a potpourri of special representative of Chaucer in the matter, she believ es in harmony between partners, however it is arrived at (Stone, 85). Of course, it is difficult to pass judgment on Chaucers personal views, as Chaucer was very careful about revealing his opinions, but the choice of the topic, and the portrayal of the shrewish wife as an understandable and rather sympathetic character might be a certain sign of Chaucers own location. For all the problems in her first quadruplet marriages, Alison does not lose hope yet. In her climactic marriage with Jankin, the only one that ends up as a success, she is expression for love. She already has enough money and a good social standing, she could be very satisfied as a widow, a woman no longer subjected to any mans whim, and yet she decides to bind again.Alison needs her own money and the license it gives. The General Prologue suggests that she also needs her own work and the status that goes with success. But she wants love as well and, in her relationship with Jankin, is romantic enough to believ e that it will make money irrelevant .When Alison finds out she lost not only her money, which by the right of marriage now belongs to her husband, but also her integrity as her young husband tries to change her into an obedient wife with no life of her own, she starts to fight him. But before the physical struggle is described, Chaucer gives us a mental picture of Alisons state, a picture of a pain woman who lacks the words to defend herself, while her husband has all the available verbal weapons.CONCLUSIONThe poet positions Gawain at the center of the unfastened tensions between chivalry, courtly love, and Christianity. Gawain is famed as the most courteous of knights. In one sense, this creates the expectation that his behavior will be irreproachable in another, it assumes that he will be the most delightful of lovers for the lady who can snare him. The Lady of Haut quit exploits this tension to the fullest as she attempts to seduce Gawain. But the poet has also make clear tha t the beloved lady whom Gawain serves first is the Virgin Mary. As a thoroughly Christianized knight, he is forced to walk a fine line in defending himself. He cannot contuse a lady, but neither can he give his hostess what she wants, because in doing so, he would be committing a sexual sin, as well as fault chivalric loyalty and honor by betraying his host.Sir Gawain and the Green Knight cannot, therefore, be called a straightforward romance. It makes use of most of the conventions and ideals of the Arthurian romance, yet also points out its contradictions and failings. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is not an anti-romance, however, nor is it a parody, disdain its lightness and good humor. When Chaucer laughs at Sir Thopas, he is mocking a tired genre, but when the Gawain-poet laughs, it is the generous laughter of friendship. The poets materialistic and traditional approach to his timeworn material is what allows him to make it so engaging He understands and thoroughly apprec iates the conventions of his genre. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight manages to cozy up the weakest points of the chivalric tradition while still appreciating everything that makes chivalry so attractive, especially its uncompromising devotion to the highest ideals, even if those ideals are not necessarily attainable (accomplished).Andreas got the Christian world to accept his concept of love by the device of the double truth. Although Christian direction and his De Amore are basically irreconcilable, they may exist side by side each in its own sphere. His main purpose was to provide a pseudo-psychological and logical stem for the ideas and ideals of the troubadours. Reasoning and building on the disposition of love and of humanity, he showed that love is the greatest good in this world, that it constitutes earthly happiness, and that it is the place of origin of all earthly good. Andreas proposed logically that if humans are viewed solely as rational and natural creatures, subj ectonly to the laws of nature and reason, then they must encrypt in the army of the god of love and seek the pleasures of the flesh so that they may be ennobled and grow in virtue and in worth. Aware of the immoral and dissenting(a) implications of his work, Andreas wrote On the Rejection of Love where he condemned Courtly love and implicitly retracted all he had written.A strong porta exists that Chaucer knew of the so-called double truth. He would have been aware of the dangers involved in compose romances of Courtly Love, the risk of an accusation of upholding wrong and heresy. He possibly set out to meet these dangers 1. He is not interested in giving Courtly love a logical and philosophical grounding he simply uses it as a vehicle for his love stories. 2. Andreas suggests he writes from experience. Chaucer states again and again that he is not writing on love from personal knowledge from experience or from his own feelings on the subject. Chaucers status is always as a no n-participant in lovea rank outsider. His relationship to love and lovers is to be their clerk, their servant and instrument to gladden them and advance them in their individual cause. He doesnt participate because he is unsuitable. Chaucer did strive for religious orthodoxy when, in the words of the Parsons Tale, he protests that he will stand for correction.If his repudiation is not in fear, it might be a salve to a Christian conscience revolted at the utter incompatibility of Courtly Love with the tenets of Christian morality and faith. SUFFERING Love brings with it love melancholy or suffering. This was studied and in fact written on at length during the Renaissance, but it was known and made part of the fictional lover during Chaucers time. All in all, Chaucers attitude to women in The Canterbury Tales can hardly be judged as antifeminist. His portrayals of women are refined and still attractive centuries after. He does not assert the male dominance in all his tales but he rea listically employs different narrators to express different attitudes. roughly of the tales question the medieval system of authorities, yet none of them is openly subversive.Chaucers female narrators cannot be judged by todays standards of feminism and when they are looked at from the medieval point of view, the undertone of feminism in their behavior and tales emerges. They are concerned with bettering the conditions for women they quarrel the authorities in their tales. And although the women of the male tales are no revolutionaries, they are still kind enough for a modernreader to enjoy. Chaucer does not portray womens struggle for self-assertion, he unfolds the complex web of his society. Chaucers attitude to women as shown in his works is more complex than that of his contemporaries, and at the said(prenominal) time remains within the borders given by the society. Chaucer is a very careful poet and as such may be found inconvenient by some modern feminists.BIBLIOGRAPHYPrim ary sourcesSri Gawain and the Green KnightWife of BathSecondary sourcesUmbetro, Eco. seminal fluid se face o teza de licenta, Polirom, Bucuresti, 2006Dutu, Carmen. Eseuri si dizertatii. Metodologia crearii unei lucrari stintifice, Editura Universitara Bucuresti, 2012G. C. Thornley and Gwyneth Roberts. An Outline of English Literature, Longman, Essex, 2008Chretien de Troyes. Arthurian romances, Penguin Books Ltd, Englad 1991Andreas Capellanus, The art of courtly love, Columbia University Press, New York 1960Bruce J. Douglas. ontogenesis of Arthurian romance from the beginnings down to the course of instruction 1300, Gloucester, Mass Peter Smith 1958Michel, Pastoureanu. La vie quotidienne en France et en Angleterre au temps des chevaliers de la Table Ronde, Hachette, Paris, 1976 1 . Courtly love. Modern term popularized by C. S. Lewis to describe the various kinds of love between man and woman described in the works of *trou- badours and others between the 11c and the 13c. The rang e of feeling ran from the dutiful respect owed a lords wife, to the adulterously sexual. One relationship was excluded, that between husband and wife. The genre first appeared in Provence and then spread through Europe. Appearing at much the same time as Arthurian tales, the two created a potent and memorable liquify of *chivalry and romance. The French phrase amour courtois is a 19c coin- age. Cf. Aubade Pastourelle 2 . b. 43 BCE, Roman who wrote a parody on the technical treatises on loving. 3 . The Ars amatoria (English The Art of Love) is an instructional book series dirge in three books by quaint Roman poet Ovid. It was written in 2 AD. It is about teaching basic gentlemanlike male and female relationship skills and techniques. 4 . Andreas Capellanus was the 12th-century author of a treatise commonly known as De amore (About Love), and often known in English, sensibly misleadingly, as The Art of Courtly Love, though its realistic, somewhat cynical tone suggests that it is in some measure an antidote to courtly love. 5 . Eleanor of Aquitaine was one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in Western Europe during the High Middle Ages . As well as being Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right, she was queen consort of France (11371152) and of England (11541189). She was the patroness of such literary figures as Wace, Benot de Sainte-Maure, and Bernart de Ventadorn. She belonged to the French House of Poitiers, the Ramnulfids. 6 . Marie of France, Countess of Champagne (1145 March 11, 1198) was the elder daughter of Louis VII of France and his first wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. 8 . French bishop of Paris during the 13th century. He was premier of the Sorbonne from 1263 and bishop of Paris from 1268.He is best remembered for promulgating a nemesis of 219 philosophical and theological propositions (or articles) that addressed ideas and concepts that were being discussed and disputed in the faculty of arts at the University of Paris. 9 . Chivalr y is as much about the skills and manners of a warrior class as with a literature derived from the deeds of those warriors, but presented in an idealized fashion which returned to define the manners of the warriors.Chivalry was a collocation of qualities made into a coherent ideal skill and courage, and a craving for glory or fame acquired through knightly skills and its necessary courage. 10 . Linda Ann Malcor Ph. D is an American scholar of Arthurian legend. She was selected as an Overseas Associate Member of the slow Antiquity Research Group.