The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition (1936

1936 in literature

The year 1936 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Life magazine is first published.* The Carnegie Medal for excellence in children's literature is established in the UK.-New books:...

), by C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...

 (ISBN 0192812203), is an influential exploration of the allegorical

Allegory

Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...

 treatment of love in the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

 and the Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

.

In the first chapter, Lewis traces the development of the idea of courtly love

Courtly love

Courtly love was a medieval European conception of nobly and chivalrously expressing love and admiration. Generally, courtly love was secret and between members of the nobility. It was also generally not practiced between husband and wife....

 from the Provençal troubadours

Troubadour

A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....

 to its full development in the works of Chrétien de Troyes

Chrétien de Troyes

Chrétien de Troyes was a French poet and trouvère who flourished in the late 12th century. Perhaps he named himself Christian of Troyes in contrast to the illustrious Rashi, also of Troyes...

. It is here that he sets forth a famous characterization of "the peculiar form which it [courtly love] first took; the four marks of Humility, Courtesy, Adultery, and the Religion of Love"—the last two of which "marks" have, in particular, been the subject of a good deal of controversy among later scholars. In the second chapter, Lewis discusses the medieval evolution of the allegorical tradition in such writers as Bernard Silvestris

Bernard Silvestris

Bernard Silvestris, also known as Bernardus Silvestris, was a Medieval Platonist philosopher and poet of the 12th century.-Biography:Little is known about his life. André Vernet, who edited Bernard's Cosmographia, believed that he lived from 1085 to 1178; the only certain date in his life is 1147,...

 and Alain de Lille

Alain de Lille

Alain de Lille , French theologian and poet, was born, probably in Lille, some years before 1128.-Life:...

.

The remaining chapters, drawing on the points made in the first two, examine the use of allegory in the depiction of love in a selection of poetic works, beginning with the Roman de la Rose

Roman de la Rose

The Roman de la rose, , is a medieval French poem styled as an allegorical dream vision. It is a notable instance of courtly literature. The work's stated purpose is to both entertain and to teach others about the Art of Love. At various times in the poem, the "Rose" of the title is seen as the...

. The focus, however, is on English works: the poems of Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...

, Gower's

John Gower

John Gower was an English poet, a contemporary of William Langland and a personal friend of Geoffrey Chaucer. He is remembered primarily for three major works, the Mirroir de l'Omme, Vox Clamantis, and Confessio Amantis, three long poems written in French, Latin, and English respectively, which...

 Confessio Amantis

Confessio Amantis

Confessio Amantis is a 33,000-line Middle English poem by John Gower, which uses the confession made by an ageing lover to the chaplain of Venus as a frame story for a collection of shorter narrative poems. According to its prologue, it was composed at the request of Richard II...

and Usk's

Thomas Usk

Thomas Usk was appointed the under-sheriff of London by Richard II in 1387.- Author of The Testament of Love :Born in London, he is the author of The Testament of Love, which was once thought to be by Geoffrey Chaucer.- Appeal :...

 Testament of Love, the works of Chaucer's epigones, and Spenser's

Edmund Spenser

Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognised as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English...

 Faerie Queene

The Faerie Queene

The Faerie Queene is an incomplete English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. The first half was published in 1590, and a second installment was published in 1596. The Faerie Queene is notable for its form: it was the first work written in Spenserian stanza and is one of the longest poems in the English...

.

The book is ornamented with quotations from poems in many languages, including Classical

Classical Latin

Classical Latin in simplest terms is the socio-linguistic register of the Latin language regarded by the enfranchised and empowered populations of the late Roman republic and the Roman empire as good Latin. Most writers during this time made use of it...

 and Medieval Latin

Medieval Latin

Medieval Latin was the form of Latin used in the Middle Ages, primarily as a medium of scholarly exchange and as the liturgical language of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, but also as a language of science, literature, law, and administration. Despite the clerical origin of many of its authors,...

, Middle English

Middle English

Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....

, and Old French

Old French

Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...

. The piquant English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

translations of many of these are Lewis's own work.