The God Amor, the Cruel Lady, and the Suppliant Lover: C.S. Lewis and Courtly Love in Chapter One of The Allegory of Love

Abstract

Lewis’s “effort of the historical imagination” in The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition—commensurate with his innate romanticism—bolstered by like-minded writers as his sources, resulted in his reconstructing of Courtly Love and its characters as a fantasy. While this approach limited his understanding of Courtly Love, its origins and its relationship to marriage and adultery, it allowed him to create a mythology of a Religion of Love: a “quasi-religion” of “service love” between a chevalier/poet and his sovereign lady, under the auspices of the god Amor. This view would elevate the medieval Anglo-French allegorical poem, which he will discuss in the following chapters of his book, as the foundation of the best of poetry that led to Chaucer and Edmund Spenser, his favorite poet.

C. S. Lewis

“…Predvodnici prvog tabora bili su Ethelbert Talbot Donaldson, autor koji je posumnjao u značenje pojma kao takvog te je općenito doveo u pitanje njegovu uporabu, 53 i Durant Waite Robertson, 54 istraživač srednjovjekovne engleske književnosti. 55 Znanstvenike drugoga tabora Khoddam nije predstavila. Prva skupina sumnja u postojanje udvorne ljubavi s obzirom na to da taj pojam suvremenici nisu spominjali.…”

“…56 Također, kao argument ističu da je ljubav univerzalno iskustvo koje ima dva lica -ono duhovno i ono tjelesno. 57 Druga skupina svoju argumentaciju temelji na pojavi parodija koje ne bi mogle postajati da nije postojala ideja o udvornoj ljubavi. 58 Khoddam je na Lewisovu primjeru zapravo pokazala da je on svojevrsna paradigma za korištenje tog pojma.…”

“…Antimodernistički stav odnosi se na sklonost pripadnika radničke klase da izlaz iz svojih teških životnih uvjeta ne traže u budućnosti nego da radije gledaju u prošlost kao vrijeme u kojem nije postojala nepravda koju u sadašnjosti podnose. (David Matthews, Medievalism: a Critical History, Boydell & Brewer, D. S. Brewer, 2015, [57][58]. U hrvatskom se jeziku koriste pojmovi medievizam i medievalizam.…”