Love for Everyone

I spent MLK Day spending time with other students and C Nicole Mason, who wrote Born Bright. Throughout the day, we discussed social injustice and how society can fight towards social justice. Reflecting back on The Art of Courtly Love and MLK day, I found myself mainly focused on "Chapter II. Between What Persons Love May Exist" and how this section reflects back into today's current climate. 

Taking the time period into consideration, I understand why it was believed that “love cannot exist except between persons of opposite sexes,” (Capellanus, 30). There are still many instances where the ideology from the older time period has remained true. For example, in 1998, Matthew Shepard was murdered in Wyoming because he identified as a gay man. Additionally, a bakery in Colorado refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple in the summer of 2017. Same-sex couples were legally allowed to marry each other in all states in 2015. Today, there are still marches to fight for LGBTQ+ rights. 

In my opinion, this chapter contradicts the overarching theme of the work that someone should do whatever it takes to make love work. A person should do whatever it takes to show their love, but according to Capellanus there are many stipulations when it comes to love. On top of not being able to love someone of the same sex, one cannot be capable of love if they are too young, too blind, or too passionate. The Art of Courtly Love seems to appeal to some idea of what love should be, but the entire piece does not encompass what love is in today's society. 

Love

COURTLY LOVE

       According to the reading from our course, courtly love has a background which gives a senses to how love was practice back the days. Around the thirteen centuries, passionate love between the two sexes was seen as a punishment inflicted on men by the Gods. I do believe that the king from the story of Les Deux Amanz didn't really want to give his daughter in marriage to any young men. As a result he set up a plan hard his daughter's lovers to achieve in order for them to marry his daughter. also, Les Deux Amanz is a good example of Andrew's rule of love number 25. Stating that "A true lover considers nothing good except what he thinks will please his beloved" the love of the king's daughter was in love in the way that he did everything just to be with her. he died on top of the hill trying to do the impossible task provided by his father in law. 

          Also, in Les Deux Amanz, the lover couldn't control his love as shown in the way love may be retained is by keeping it secret (Andrew). Despite the fact that the lover of the king's daughter knew that he couldn't do the task asked, he had an kept seen his lover in secret until exposed by people. he still went and proposed even thought he saw previews men falling to succeed the task asked by the father in law. We can explain the rule number of love by Andrew in the fact that the king's daughter couldn't love someone else. so, she died from the loneliness after the death of her lover. 

Masculine Perspective of Love

During my reading of The Art of Courtly Love by Andreas Capellanus, and of the language and focus of the writing, specifically that of the chapter “Between What Persons Love May Exist” on page 30, a consistent, persistent use of an invariably uniform undertone was made apparent. Throughout the entirety of the reading, there was a distinct focus upon masculinity, but the language used was also masculine in perspective. Most of the points that are made are done so through an almost blatant objectification of women, in such cases men are the ‘lovers’ and women are that thing which is to be loved. This contrasts with the modern use of the term lovers, which is often considered in the plural sense to include both of the people who are in love. The use in this writing, however, seems to indicate that only a man may be a lover to his ‘beloved’ and that this status of being a lover is one which is exclusive to the male gender.

            This does not mean that the woman, or beloved, is necessarily looked down upon, or that it would be impermissible for a woman to be a lover, but rather indicates to a modern reader the way medieval men and women thought about love. Indeed, some of these traditions of a man being stereotypically chivalrous or doting to a woman have carried themselves onward into the modern age, but our language and usage of it has evolved, to some degree. As Capellanus states, “Every attempt of a lover tends toward the enjoyment of the embraces of her whom he loves…” (Capellanus, p. 30).  This sheds some insight on the thinking of the beloved woman being a static or inactive party which must be acted upon by a male lover.

Female Choice

While reading The Art of Courtly Love I was reminded frequently of the prospect of female choice in biological science. The story of the knight from Britain, I feel, is a good example of female choice. If the knight did not need to rely on the beautiful woman choosing him, but instead making it his own decision to form a relationship with the woman, he likely would not have had to complete the various tasks laid out for him.

            This stories theme is a common one, where the hero must complete feats of physical or mental strength to prove himself over those around him, much like the hero of this story battling knights and maintaining his composure and honor throughout his quest. Sheer feats of brute strength are not the only things the common hero needs to show, a sense of compassion towards others and the capability to show mercy towards those they have conflicts with, which can be seen in the battle on the bridge, “But when the Briton was about to smite off his head, the bridge keeper, by the most humble entreaties, sought and obtained mercy.” (Capellanus, 180).

The notion of female choice gives enormous power to those women seeking a spouse or lover, while simultaneously giving reason for the men to become the best that they can in every way they can.

Love Wins

After reading the story, The Art of Cortly Love, it gave me some interesting insight on how love was viewed in medieval times. After reading chapter two: "Between What Persons Love May Exist" I was not surprised to find that it stated that people of the same sex cannot love each other. This relates to a debate that continues today. The United States has come a long way in supporting homosexual couples. This includes legalizing same-sex marriages, but we have yet to reach full equality. There are still many people in the United States that believe being a homosexual is morally wrong. Many of these people have this belief because of their religion. My uncle is married to a man that he loves. It took a long time before they were able to become married; throughout this period of time, both of them have faced hardships due to their sexual orientation. There are still many people today that face these same troubles, and it upsets me to know that many of these people are not accepted for who they love. I do not believe that you can choose who you love; I think love is a feeling, whether it is felt towards someone of the same-sex or not. 

Surprise, God might actually be a woman

When I was reading Courtly Love I was very surprised to find out that women had more say in their relationships with their men/knight during this time. It was actually refreshing to know that there wasn't this sense of men over everything. Too often people, myself included, I feel like make the assumption that women did not have any room to speak in their relationships. However, after reading this, I have noticed that women do in fact have a say. They have so much of a say that they had the knights and men in these stories doing whatever they could to win over their hearts. That was also something that I enjoyed seeing was that the stories tended to be more focused on the journey of getting the girl and winning over her heart, rather than getting the girl and into her pants sort of thing.   In Courtly Love it stated what I thought was a cool point in that, "the "symptoms" of love as if it were a sickness." (Schwartz). The author mentioned this point was drawn up by a Latin poet and that it created an element that was special to the stories. That these knights who were trying to win over these girls were in love to the point of it being a sickness. Lovesick is a term that I think can be used today but as more of a way of saying someone has a crush not actually being in love with the person. 

Women Rule All

Courtly Love is a medieval conception of the way love was supposed to be between a noble knight and his "dream girl." Courtly Love surprised me when I started reading it because I thought that the knights, the men of the medieval times, would have complete control over his significant other and women would comply to what their knight wanted. After reading this, I realized it was the complete opposite! Women in this time period had way more control over their men! Women were definitely the target audience for Courtly Love because they held the dominance and they were in control of what they wanted, not what their knight wanted. In these stories, the knights would do anything for their lady to gain their lust. Courtly love goes hand in hand with romance movies and novels today because they also target women and they develop a misconceived idea of love. Romance novels and movies portray sappy love, where a man typically wins the heart of his desired women. Just like Courtly Love, men are winning their women over and women allowing that man to be in their life. However, Courtly Love was not so much about sexual desires, it was more about companionship and holding the hearts of one another. Courtly Love demonstrated chivalry and nobleness to gain the trust of their desired lady.