The Myths of Love: Classical Lovers in Medieval Literature
- Author / Editor
- Heinrichs, Katherine.
The Myths of Love: Classical Lovers in Medieval Literature
- Published
- University Park and London : Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990.
- Physical Description
- 270 pp.
- Description
- Examines "conventions governing allusions to certain Ovidian and Virgilian tales of love in the works of Boccaccio, Machaut, Froissart, and Chaucer," addressing "questions of narrative voice, thematic unity, and purpose" and concentrating on Chaucer's French and Italian sources and their affinities with the "Roman de la Rose." In chapter 5, Heinrichs demonstrates that although classical lovers, most prominent in BD, HF, PF, and LGW, are used as clues to meaning, critics--assuming that Chaucer borrowed the language of his French sources without respecting the "ideas or structural characteristics of their poetry"--have disagreed widely about those meanings. Heinrichs refutes their critical misconceptions, showing that in BD Chaucer, following tradition, associates the classical lovers with "the theme of overvaluation of temporalia." In HF, the "persistent bewilderment and innocent admiration" of the naive Geffrey suggests that "the operations of Fortune, as manifested in the two arenas of Love and Fame," bewilder the unreflecting literalist. The lesson is that "servitude to Fortune leads to frustration." In PF, the moral directive for the narrator is "allegiance to celestial love or, if his inclination is earthly, to natural love and the founding of a family." Classical lovers figure most prominently in LGW, a work built on the traditional idea that love's martyrs are foolish in their sacrifices. Chaucer, however, "turns symbols on their heads, associating the daisy with Christ and the Virgin and Alceste with Cupid." Like Machaut, Chaucer exposes "the absurdity of the doctrine that results when Christian virtue is converted to the service of love 'pars amours'." In all these poems, the uses of classical lovers are "circumscribed and governed by convention." Modern critical approaches prevent us "from reading medieval poetry as the poets meant it to be read." The "lover/narrators of later French (and Italian and English) poetry" are stock characters who represent a consistent and traditional "stock point of view."
- Chaucer Subjects
- Background and General Criticism.
- House of Fame.
- Parliament of Fowls.
- Legend of Good Women.
- Book of the Duchess.