The Sovereignty of Venus: The Problem of Courtly Love
- Author / Editor
- Hughes, Geoffrey.
The Sovereignty of Venus: The Problem of Courtly Love
- Published
- English Studies in Africa 25 (1982): 61-77.
- Description
- The literature of courtly love does not accurately reflect medieval behavior in matters of love and sexual relations. Criseyde's "Who yaf me drinke?" (TC 2.651) derives from the motif of the love potion, which symbolizes "the overwhelming, obsessive power of passion, a species of madness, a superhuman force which relieves the individual of his moral responsibility and exorcizes guilt and shame."
- Chaucer Subjects
- Troilus and Criseyde.