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.
Courtly love began in the ducal and princely courts of Aquitaine, Provence, Champagne, ducal Burgundy and the Norman Kingdom of Sicily at the end of the eleventh century. In essence, courtly love was an experience between erotic desire and spiritual attainment that now seems contradictory as "a love at once illicit and morally elevating, passionate and disciplined, humiliating and exalting, human and transcendent".
The term "courtly love" was first popularized by Gaston Paris in 1883, and has since come under a wide variety of definitions and uses, even being dismissed as nineteenth-century romantic fiction. Its interpretation, origins and influences continue to be a matter of critical debate.
Read more about Courtly Love: Origin of Term, History, Analysis, Literary Convention, Stages of Courtly Love
Famous quotes containing the words courtly and/or love:
“But see, the Virgin blest
Hath laid her Babe to rest:
Time is our tedious song should here have ending;
Heaven’s youngest teemed star,
Hath fixed her polished car,
Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;
And all about the courtly stable,
Bright-harnessed angels sit in order serviceable.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“No beauty she doth miss,
When all her robes are on;
But Beauty’s self she is,
When all her robes are gone.”
—Unknown. My Love in Her Attire (l. 5–8)