Justifying Love: The Classical 'Rucusatio' in Medieval Love Literature

Author / Editor
Haahr, Joan G.

Title
Justifying Love: The Classical 'Rucusatio' in Medieval Love Literature

Published
James J. Paxson and Cynthia A. Gravlee, eds. Desiring Discourse: The Literature of Love, Ovid Through Chaucer (Selinsgrove, Penn.: Susquehanna University Press; London: Associated University Presses, 1998), pp. 39-61.

Description
Focuses on "recusatio" ("'refusal' to obey") as a rhetorical device used in classical tradition to justify the "poetic legitimacy of amatory subjects" and broadened in medieval tradition to enable "new types of courtly literature emphasizing private and secular experience." Discusses examples in works by Propertius, Ovid, troubadour poets, Chrétien de Troyes, Boccaccio, and Chaucer in TC.

Alternative Title
Desiring Discourse: The Literature of Love, Ovid Through Chaucer.

Chaucer Subjects
Troilus and Criseyde
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations