Courtly Love

“It has always been felt that there is something unreal and abnormal about the troubadour concept of love, overly sentimental, diffident, and submissive...” (Moller 39)

There are several central concepts regarding courtly love: the sovereignty of a woman in a man’s thoughts making him the passive party, a usually unreciprocated or refused love, and distance which prevents said love. These concepts help to shape the author’s love and are what make their poems so enticing to the reader. Countless troubadours use these concepts throughout their poetry.

Jaufre Rudel, in his poem, A Love Afar, references the concepts of courtly love. This poem compares his love for a woman to a pilgrimage. The title, along with the theme of this poem, emphasizes the theme of distance in one’s love. It also highlights the concept of unfulfilled love. For example, in the fourth stanza he says, “Yet how we’ll ever come to meet / I know not since her land’s so far.” This implies that their love cannot be fulfilled because of their distance, combining two key parts of courtly love poetry.

Guiraut de Bornelh also uses these ideals of courtly love. In his poem, When the Ice and Cold Snow Retreat, he compares his love to that of a besieged castle:

“Lady, as when lords with power

Besiege a castle, bringing to bear

Their catapult, Perrier

… No amount of cunning can

save the besieged: wrenching the cries…

They are, you see,

Reduced to clamoring for mercy—

So I beg that you might save me…”

Here, de Bornelh makes himself the submissive party. His love for her bombards his being so much, that he can only be relieved from such trouble by her. Also, being compared to a besieged castle, bombarded by catapults, shows how encompassing his love is for her. There is nothing that can save him, the besieged.

Bertran de Born’s  Lady Since You Care Nothing for Me speaks on the love of a woman who does not reciprocate. In this poem, he attempts to create “the perfect woman” as a substitute for the woman he really desires. In the end, however, he returns to the woman he loves truly:

“I ask naught from you,

Save that I have such hunger for

This phantom

As Ive for you, such flame-lap

And yet I’d rather

Ask of you than hold another…”

Despite constructing the perfect woman, de Born remains preoccupied with the woman he loves. He is held fast by his love for her. This corresponds to the concept that their love is all encompassing. The perfect woman, checks off every want and desire he could have, yet he isn’t satisfied with that. His love for the woman he can’t have is still at the forefront of his thoughts.

Works Cited

Kehew, Robert, ed. Lark in the Morning: The Verses of the Troubadours. Trans. Ezra Pound and W. D. Snodgrass. Chicago: U of Chicago, 2005.

Moller, Herbert. "The Meaning of Courtly Love." The Journal of American Folklore

73.287 (1960): 39-52. JSTOR.

<http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/537601?ref=no-x-route:f45279d1a439db724de80342b10f1538>.