bluestjuice 's review for:

The Art of Courtly Love by Andreas Capellanus

5.0

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Fascinating and eminently re-readable, I think. This reads like the Redbook of the twelfth century, giving rules and guidance for how to attract a woman's love, how one should behave as a lover, and what to do when love is waning or ending. Purportedly written at the insistence of Marie de Champagne, one of the great advocates of the Courtly Love system fashionable in the 1180s, it conveys a process of thought that is heavily shaped by women, yet still displays glaring double standards about male and female conduct here and there. The final section, on the renunciation of love, completely contradicts everything covered in the main treatise, and seems to better suit the opinions of the Chaplain who writes the text than everything that comes before. It's eye-rolling in the extreme, but the earlier sections are a specific and interesting look into a set of morals and values that are precise, but definitely different than ours today. I also especially liked the made-up dialogues between lovers of various social classes.