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Ethics and Enjoyment in Late Medieval Poetry

Love after Aristotle

Jessica Rosenfeld author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:21st Nov '13

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Ethics and Enjoyment in Late Medieval Poetry cover

Provides an essential ethical history of courtly love poetry by tracing its engagement with the late medieval reception of Aristotelian ethics.

This is a study of the love poetry of late medieval Europe, looking in particular at the ways in which the Ethics of Aristotle, newly translated, influenced the ideas and expressions of courtly love.Jessica Rosenfeld provides a history of the ethics of medieval vernacular love poetry by tracing its engagement with the late medieval reception of Aristotle. Beginning with a history of the idea of enjoyment from Plato to Peter Abelard and the troubadours, the book then presents a literary and philosophical history of the medieval ethics of love, centered on the legacy of the Roman de la Rose. The chapters reveal that 'courtly love' was scarcely confined to what is often characterized as an ethic of sacrifice and deferral, but also engaged with Aristotelian ideas about pleasure and earthly happiness. Readings of Machaut, Froissart, Chaucer, Dante, Deguileville and Langland show that poets were often markedly aware of the overlapping ethical languages of philosophy and erotic poetry. The study's conclusion places medieval poetry and philosophy in the context of psychoanalytic ethics, and argues for a re-evaluation of Lacan's ideas about courtly love.

ISBN: 9781107696600

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 14mm

Weight: 350g

258 pages