Courtly Love: An idealized beloved is loved at a distance,
inciting pain that is often bodily experienced by the lover, who puts
themselves and their desire through a state of restrained submission.
Idealized: “Lady, Since You Care Nothing for Me”
“And since I
could not find a peer to you,
Neither one
so fair, nor of such heart,
So eager and
alert,
Nor with
such art
In attire,
nor so gay
Nor with
gift so bountiful and so true,
I will go
out a-searching,
Culling from
each a fair trait
To make me a
borrowed lady
Till I again
find you ready.”
The pedestal
upon which this unnamed Lady is placed is blatant in this stanza. She has no
peer, not even a “borrowed lady” made of solely the best possible traits. The
statement that he “could not find a peer” to her insinuates that he has looked
for such a woman. That he says he will have this made up lady only “till [he]
again find(s) [his Lady] ready” insinuates that the borrowed woman is not, in
fact, equivalent to his true love.
The
particular traits addressed in this poem as those of an ideal woman are: fragility,
energy, zeal, good clothes, happiness, a giving nature, honesty, a natural glow,
bright eyes, the willingness to speak her thoughts directly, hands, throat,
beautiful hair, young, tight body, lifted stature, and white teeth. The author
describes his love as one might describe a young noble girl. This Lady does not
have any signs of hard work in her life, she is constantly happy and beautiful
and carefree. This covers the major image of a beautiful woman for the
troubadours.
Signs of
restraint in this poem fall within the 5th stanza, where Bertran de
Born merely suggests the sexuality he asks of his Lady’s “straight fresh
body,/she is so supple and young,/her robes can but do her wrong.” He clearly
prefers to have her naked but pulls back this image in the personification of
the Lady’s clothing wronging her body by covering it from the world’s sight.
Distance: “The Skylark”
“Now when I
see the skylark lift
His wings
for joy in dawn’s first ray
Then let
himself, oblivious, drift
For all his
heart is glad and gay,
……
I can’t
control this heart that flies
To her who
pays love no return.
Ay! Now she
steals, through love’s sweet theft,
My heart, my
self, my world entire;
She steals
herself and I am left
Only this longing and desire.”
These two stanzas create two different kinds of distance
between Bertran de Ventadorn and his love. First, the images of the skylark
flying away and Bertran’s heart flying away create physical distance. Second,
the longing and desire Bertran feels create an emotional distance. Bertrain
insinuates both in his line: “to her who pays love no return”. In this line, ‘return’
can be taken to mean a physical return-trip to Bertran, or an emotional lack of
requited love.
The idea that love is unattainable and distant is crucial to
the nature of courtly love, because if the love could be reached, they would be
wed and would no longer desire one another. This echoes the idea of Eros as
defined by Anne Carson; a husband is already accessible, so cannot be desired
by definition. If two lovers never have one another, they can consistently
idealize what their love could be like, and live within this fantasy world of
constant desire, inevitably to become disappointed should it every truly occur.
In addition, the legality of marriage completely eliminated all sense of
emotional connection, such that desire would lack the logos to allow for
marriage at the time.
A sense of pain and submission is evident in that his love
has stolen his entire self and his entire world by force of theft. Theft in the
legal sense is traumatizing, as it involves one’s personal space and belongings
being invaded and violated. Thus, by describing love as a “sweet theft”,
Bertran is helpless but also finds a sweetness to his pain such that he allows
it, further exemplifying the tenants of Eros.
Pain, Submission, Tension: “When the Ice and Cold and Snow
Retreat”
Pain: “…through overmuch
Loving, I’m lost—
Like a ship spun round and tossed
By wind and wave on sundering seas,
So my thoughts do pummel me.”
This is but
one of a few instances of pain in this poem, where the love he has for this
lady tosses his thoughts so heavily that, mentally, he feels like a ship being
tossed by waves. He acknowledges that he possibly loves too much, yet he feels
that he can take no actions to protect himself.
Submission: “As guide and witness aid me:
See how I’m conquered by my lady.”
Guiraut’s
inability to defend himself is due to his submission to being “conquered” by
love. This statement is a culmination of multiple sources of pain, but this is
his most direct statement of submission.
Tension: “My life would be
Over in a second’s fraction,
If any harm my way should happen;
Yet what is mine you still deny me.”
The tension in these few lines illustrates that there is
still an expectation of return that comes from these love poems. There is something
that Guiraut feels he deserves but is not receiving; the gift evokes a
countergift from the courtly love. In addition, the acknowledgement that he has
given himself to his love in submission yet still hasn’t received the same
courtesy serves to directly address this expectation of reciprocity and
simultaneously highlight the lack of reciprocity as a trope of courtly love.
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