Courtly Love

Courtly Love

The notion of "courtly love" (or "chivalric values" or what we might commonly call "chivalry") comes from the Languedoc region of Southern France and seems to appear quite suddenly at the end of the 11th Century. It is often associated with a troubador tradition of singers extolling the virtues of knights and their ladies. We use the word Romance to describe the long poems which come out of this tradition, not because of the presence of love, but because of the elements of knightly quest which are often represented in the poems. The well-known search for the Holy Grail (the actual cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper) is an illustration of the Romantic quest story. Although almost all of the romance poems from this tradition come from France, there are a number of poems which deal with Arthurian legend and thus with English characters and places.

The ideals of courtly love sprang from some of the convoluted and confining theology of the Middle Ages. Given some of the things we saw in Chaucer's Wife of Bath's stories, we can understand the dim view the Church took of women. Sex was, in itself, not evil, but to desire sex was evil. According to some medieval theologians, then, a man could commit adultery with his own wife! Marriage was rarely based on anything we would consider love, so the notion of a passionate, romantic love grew out of this context. Romantic love, as conceived in the stories and codes of behaviour of medieval France, and continuing to our modern notion of romantic love, was a novelty and largely a convention in the 11th century.

Courtly love, then, sprang up in opposition to marriage and to the Church's rules on love. In fact, medieval scholar C.S. Lewis suggests it formed a "rival religion" for knights and people at court. It demanded respect for one's king, and the worship of a Lady, preferably married. It was a specialized kind of love, demanding Humility, Courtesy, Adultery, and a Religion of Love. The adultery was a necessary side effect, if you will, of the rest of the code. If the ideals were impossible to achieve in marriage, then they were to be sought outside marriage.

In the English language, Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, taken from continental sources and based on a love story from classical Greece, is one of the greatest examples. The Knight's Tale in The Canterbury Tales, or even the short tale the Wife of Bath tells, are further examples of Romance or courtly love poetry in English.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Sir Gawain is one of King Arthur's knights of the Round Table. This poem is set at Christmas-time, and involves a deadly "beheading game" which is an old pagan motif. As you begin, think of Beowulf and Hrothgar's hall. Also, as in the Wife of Bath's Tale, we see that there is a conventional time limit, a year and a day, for the knight to undergo his trials and tribulations as he searches for something - in this case, the home of the Green Knight. As you read of his search, pay attention to the descriptions of where he goes, what the landscape is like, and what we are told of that year of Gawain's life.

The poem, as we read it, is a translation from the Middle English original (whew!). You should have a little less trouble with it than you may have had with Chaucer. Sir Gawain is presented as a poem, though (unlike our version of Beowulf, which was translated from poetry into a prose version), and there are features of the original which the translator is trying to maintain. Note, for example, the alliteration in the individual lines of verse. This reflects the Old English poetic line which relied heavily on alliteration on either side of a caesura or short pause mid-line. The verse form is unique, too, and called a "bob-and-wheel", with the short "punctuating" section at the end of each verse.

Questions for Discussion

Sometime this week (the earlier the better!), post a response to these questions to our class newsgroup. Once you have responded, log-on later to respond to others' responses.

1. What kinds of tests does Gawain have to undergo?
   
2. What do you think this big green knight, or his "human" representation Sir Bercilak, might symbolize?
   
3. Think of the reception Gawain gets at the end when he returns to Arthur's court. What is the significance of this reception to our understanding of the poem as a whole?

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