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In this volume a variety of perspectives reevaluate the nature of friendship, desire, and the olde daunce of love in the Middle Ages. Challenging earlier scholarly notions about medieval marriage, this book suggests and explores the legitimacy of marital friendship, affection, and mutuality. The authors explore the relationship of medieval love to companionship, equality, and power, and relate medieval expressions of love to a number of issues including creativity, reading and writing, voyeurism, chastity, violence, and even hate.
The book reconsiders the theological, philosophical, and legal background of medieval attitudes toward marriage, analyzes expressions of love and desire in European vernacular literature, and considers several implications of Chaucer's treatment of love, marriage, and sexuality.
"The work comprises essays on an important subject by well-known and excellent medievalists and will prove a most useful collection to those engaged in a study of love, sex, friendship, and their role in human civilization. All the essays in this collection are embedded in first-rate scholarship and presentation and will greatly enhance medieval critical study, especially that of Middle English literature." — Dorothee Metlitzki, Yale University
Introduction
Robert R. Edwards and Stephen Spector
1. "Adam's Only Companion": Augustine and the Early Christian Debate on Marriage
Elizabeth A. Clark
2. Maritalis Affectio Revisited
Michael M. Sheehan
3. Loving the Unequal Equal: Medieval Theologians and Marital Affection
Erik Kooper
4. The Medieval Poet as Voyeur
A. C. Spearing
5. Love and Power in the Twelfth Century, with Special Reference to Chrétien de Troyes and Marie de France
R. W Hanning
6. Chastity and Love in the Decameron
Giovanni Sinicropi
7. From Fin Amour to Friendship: Dante's Transformation
Jerome Mazzaro
8. Faithful Translations: Love and the Question of Poetry in Chaucer
Robert R. Edwards
9. Man, Men, and Women in Chaucer's Poetry
John M. Fyler
10. From Dorigen to the Vavasour: Reading Backwards
Alan T. Gaylord
11. Reason, Machaut, and the Franklin
James I. Wimsatt
12. Empathy and Enmity in the Prioress's Tale
Stephen Spector
13. "Loves Hete" in the Prioress's Prologue and Tale
Marie Borroff
Notes
Contributors
Index