Courtly Love: You can look, but you’d better not touch
The Church forbade open expression of sexual desire, but the medieval notion of “courtly love” suggested that love and admiration could exist somewhere between erotic desire and spiritual attainment. One writer defined courtly love as something "at once illicit and morally elevating, passionate and disciplined, humiliating and exalting, human and transcendent".
Courtly love is associated with the Knight who falls in love with the married woman – or at least the idea of the pure woman. He admires her from afar,goes to war for her, and sacrifices his life.
Troubadours, medieval singers who went from town to town, singing love songs, often represented this idea of courtly love, with an undercurrent of sexuality. An example is a Spanish song about a young woman visiting a nearby stream:Her adoring boyfriend meets her there:a mountain stag makes the waters stir.Happily in love, in love she’s happy.(from Song About a Girl at a Spring)
蛮有意思的，全文阅读》》
Posts
.gif){kind=small}