'Swiche Olde Lewed Wordes': Books about Medieval Love, Medieval Books about Love and the Medieval Book of Love

Author / Editor
Dove, Mary.

Title
'Swiche Olde Lewed Wordes': Books about Medieval Love, Medieval Books about Love and the Medieval Book of Love

Published
Andrew Lynch and Philippa Maddern, eds. Venus and Mars (Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press, 1995), pp. 11-33.

Description
Intertextual references in MerT invite recourse to medieval commentators on the Song of Solomon.
The glosses on Solomon suggest views of medieval marriage and sexuality different from those of either C. S. Lewis or Michel Foucault.
They provide a complex idea of Aristotelian "causes" of love, resisting the opposition of "literal" sexuality to "spiritual" sense that D. W. Robertson and David Aers have, in different ways, applied to Chaucer.

Alternative Title
Venus and Mars.

Chaucer Subjects
Merchant and His Tale.