Courtly Love

Fin’ amor or courtly love is a common theme that is seen throughout the poems in Lark in the Morning. Courtly love is usually defined as a man expressing his love for a woman from afar, praising her by putting her on a pedestal and being submissive to her.

Pg.151

“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,

Not with such art

In attire, nor so gay

Nor with gift so bountiful and so true,

I will go out a-searching,

Culling form each a fair trait

To make me a borrowed lady

Till I again find you ready.”

The man puts his lover on a pedestal and in a way unattainable by saying that there is no one out there that is as perfect as her. In an attempt to try to find another love since his current love is unrequited, he tries to find someone with the same qualities as her but comes up empty handed when he “could not find a peer to you, neither one so fair, nor of such heart, so eager and alert”. Instead, he goes out to try to pull different traits from different women to create his ideal woman, one who is still incomparable to his love. At the last stanza, he shows how much power this woman hold with her beauty that even “with this phantom as I’ve for you, such flame-lap, and yet I’d rather ask of you than hold another, mayhap, right close and kissed”. Even his perfect creation of a woman doesn't measure up to his lover.

Pg.129

“When the Ice and Cold and Snow Retreat”

“When the ice and cold and snow retreat

And warmth creeps back into the land,

When Spring revives the greenness, and

The birds their melodies repeat,

            Then the sweet

Time at the end of March is so pleasing

That like a leopard I am leaping;

Neither stag nor goat was ever

So swift. If she to whom I offer

            Myself as gift

Chose to accept, that honor would lift

Me over all men in wealth and power…

To the degree that she’d let me love her.”

He puts himself in a position that is submissive to his lover. He too, puts her on this pedestal in which he worships her. He describes his feeling of love as comparable to the blooming of the spring. She is seen as the dominant one in the relationship because he will to “offer [himself] as a gift” to her. Also, he says that if only she would accept him, he would feel so honored. If she gave her love to him, then that put him “over all men in wealth and power”. This shows the power that this woman holds over him and how submissive he is to her in that way. He is waiting for her to accept his love and allow him to love her.

Pg 85.

“You’ve Asked, My Lords, for Song”

“Good Lady, thank you for

Your love so true and fine;

I swear I love you more

Than all past loves of mine.

I bow and join my hands

Yielding myself to you;

The one thing you might do

Is give me one sweet glance

If sometime you’ve the chance’.

This man too yields himself to his lover. He “loves her more than all past loves” and this shows his commitment to her. He courts her too despite her being married to his lord that he sings for. In this way, she is unattainable, yet he continues to go after her. Her lover puts her in a position of dominance because even “one sweet glance” would mean a lot to him. A gesture so little carries so much more meaning than one would think. He is submissive to her and puts her as the most important thing to him in his life. In the way that she can make or break him, she has dominant power over him.