Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 An Eye for Truth and Beauty: A Metaphysical Preface to Middle English Literature of Love and Knowledge
- 2 A Two-fold Symbol of Knowledge: Sight in Natural Philosophy
- 3 The Hostility of Love and Knowledge: Sight in Medieval Love Poetry
- 4 The Hospitality of Love and Knowledge, I: The Shared Language and Shared Ideas of Erotic Love and Spiritual Love
- 5 The Hospitality of Love and Knowledge, II: Erotic Love and Natural Philosophy Revisited
- 6 The Interference of Self-reflexiveness: The Poet and the Parasitisme of Love and Knowledge
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - The Hostility of Love and Knowledge: Sight in Medieval Love Poetry
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 An Eye for Truth and Beauty: A Metaphysical Preface to Middle English Literature of Love and Knowledge
- 2 A Two-fold Symbol of Knowledge: Sight in Natural Philosophy
- 3 The Hostility of Love and Knowledge: Sight in Medieval Love Poetry
- 4 The Hospitality of Love and Knowledge, I: The Shared Language and Shared Ideas of Erotic Love and Spiritual Love
- 5 The Hospitality of Love and Knowledge, II: Erotic Love and Natural Philosophy Revisited
- 6 The Interference of Self-reflexiveness: The Poet and the Parasitisme of Love and Knowledge
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
‘Oh what a labyrinth!’
(Anonymous)Love at first sight produces the hostility of love and knowledge. This is the fundamental convention of medieval love poetry; it is also the basis for more complex considerations in literature of the relationship between love and knowledge. Investigation of a relationship of symbiosis ensues from the established importance of hostility based on sight. The hostility/host/hospitality system of parasitisme in metaphysics and natural philosophy provides several medieval poets, including Chaucer, with a model of complexity beyond that which the convention of love at first sight would otherwise suggest. For poets such as Dante, Jean de Meun, the Pearl-poet, and Chaucer, the convention of love at first sight often leads into a presentation of love that incorporates arange of applications of sight and becomes a discourse of metaphysical and naturalistic knowledge as well. Such a development in some ways denies the simplicity of love at first sight.
The relationship between religious language, naturalistic concepts, and the literature of fin' amor, or what has commonly been called ‘courtly love,’ is difficult to define, perhaps even to discern. Efforts to tease out cause and effect between the two and resulting speculations on the meaning of (especially) secular love literature have led to a critical morass. Most critics have come to emphasize analyzing expressions of love in context, while guarding against forced ironic interpretations. The relationship between love, knowledge, and sight benefits from such an emphasis yet also points to a clearer conceptual relationship between religious and naturalistic principles and literature of fin' amor.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Chaucer on Love, Knowledge and Sight , pp. 75 - 114Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 1995