Courtly love

Courtly love in the time of the troubadours is something that remains unfamiliar and strange to us today, however many remnants of that culture remain. It is defined by distance, by potential but not actual love and sex, by the power, loftiness, and holiness of the woman, by religion, and by love as slavery or pain.
Cercamon, for example, gives us in his poem "When the Sweet Air Goes Bitter" a perfect example of love causing agony, somewhat like the theme of "bittersweet eros" in many poems that have gone before. "Of love I have naught/ save sad and grievous thoughts" despite the fact that he is in love, shows very clearly his state of mind. Similarly, "I do not love, nor cure me,/ nor feel my ache" has the idea that love is almost a disease or physical problem, and also that the poet does not want to be cured. That this pain is something he desires and looks forward to in a way, at the same time as he is asking for it to be assuaged. Then his descriptions of being in love itself: "I shake and burn and quiver," "would I had died that day/ I came into her sway./ God! How softly this kills!," and "Killed me she has." All of these show immense distress and pain at the prospect of love, to "shake" from cold and "burn" from heat simultaneously (this contrast is also played with by many authors), and even leads to death, being killed by both the love and by the woman. Depicting love as something violent and awful, a negative influence to the troubadour who sings, is very common. It seems to prove the love more real to them, the more it is passionate. Then, though, it incorporates themes of God as well, inextricably linking his love of God with his love for the woman. Though it is outside of marriage and has sexual overtones, courtly love is defined by its holiness and relationship to religion. And they do not seem to find these things at odds with one another. In Cercamon there is mention when he says "God give me life, and let my course run." Ventadorn similarly says "When God who reigns above/ gave much, I took my gains; now that his gifts abate/ I suffer that as much." Clearly God to them is the giver of the love they feel, the cause of it, which is both a blessing and a curse. Ventadorn's poetry also makes clear how highly positioned the lady is in relation to the man, at least in courtly love. First of all, he says that she "Treats me with honor and grace when she deigns," where the word choice of "deigns" clearly gives her power in the relationship. This is based a lot of her chastity and purity, despite the fact that the troubadour apparently wants to befoul that, such as a few lines later when he says "Lest blame should fall of her chaste guiltlessness." Or in the next poem, more obviously, "I bow and join my hands/ yielding myself to you." He also incorporates themes of sex, such as "She lies in, to embrace/ And press against me, tight,/ Her body, smooth and white." Not directly sex, still keeping the potentiality rather than the actuality, but undeniably with sexual innuendo. In the previous poem, he describes being able to kiss her, saying they would "leave the marks a whole month in plain sight." So instead of the sweet, regular kissing, this line seems to imply that they are giving each other hickeys - both more sexuality and a sign of the violence of courtly love at times. Marcabru also perfectly shows that raising up of the girl to power and holiness in "The Peasant Lassie," where she continually rejects his advances. However, this is not the typical courtly love rejection, where the lady backs away in order to seem chaste - the peasant lassie truly seems to grow tired of him. He says "Lass, but you're high born, not common;/ surely some night was your father/ or he couldn't give your mother/ such a well-bred peasant lassie" and "Lass some fairy queen must love you/ since at your birth, she bewitched you/ with a beauty that enriched you/ as the loveliest peasant lassie." Clearly she is not high-born, showing the troubadours tendency to give women a place of holiness and importance in their minds. It also mocks the drama of the usual compliments to women, by having these overblown statements be called out as fake by the "lassie." This exaggerated treatment of women is common in poems such as these. Finally, Marcabru also meets a girl in his previous poem who is in love with a man who is far away. He has left for service, and she says "In your company goes my loved one,/ handsome, strong, of valor proven,/ gone; and in his place I'm given/ desire and weeping unrestrained./ Ah, a curse!" and later describes him as "My love, who's left me here forsaken." Her pain at his loss is one of the most touching themes in the book. This theme of distance is perhaps the most important in courtly love, as the sadness caused by the impossibility of making a true relationship, the excitement of secrecy, and the practical lack of knowledge each has for the other really define and explain the other themes of courtly love. Without that restraint, that potential, the troubadours would lose interest. To have a happy and fulfilling relationship with someone you love is never written about.