Reader week 5

Question 1

Courtly love

Answer 1

• Mostly about male fulfilment and ennoblement
• Makes the men seemingly deferential to women
• 19th century invention (term)(LITERARY CONVENTION)
• Follows etiquette from France
• Scholarly invention

Question 2

Origins of Courtly Love

Answer 2

• Carry-over from feudal bond between a lord and his vassal into male-female relationships (lady=lord)
• Consequence of rising popularity Marian cult
• Some link it to neoplatonism or Cathar heresy

Question 3

Amor heroes

Answer 3

malady at the hand of love (love-sickness)
sleeplessness/lack of appetite etc.
melancholia
deadly if not treated

Question 4

inspiration for Franklin’s Tale

Answer 4

Filocolo (longer) and Decameron (preferred)
both by Boccaccio
instead of making stones vanish, make a garden bloom in January

Question 5

Differences FT and Boccaccio

Answer 5

• in Brittany
• love Arveragus and Dorigen firmly established
• Dorigen’s concern for Arveragus is motivation for moving the rocks
• Arveragus gives Dorigen up for concern of her trouthe

Question 6

list of women Dorigen lists in speech about suicide (organisation)

Answer 6

1. virgins who preferred death to loss of maidenhood
2. wives who ought to kill themselves rather than be false to their husbands
3. wives who have won fame through chastity

Question 7

Structure FT

Answer 7

two halves who mirror each other around a midpoint
midpoint is clerk and his illusions and winter
spring –> winter –> renewal of life

Question 8

Themes FT

Answer 8

gentilesse, honour, chivalry, mutual respect between man and wife (!), humbles, trouthe (!), love, liberty, patience, temperance suffrance,
KEY THEME: reality and its interpretation or appearance (illusion)

Question 9

which was the most fre

Answer 9

NOT FREE but virtuous/generous

anyone but Dorigen since she didn’t really sacrifice anything

Question 10

ethos of honour

Answer 10

honour relies both on the claim to social reputation and on the corresponding sense of inner worth
sometimes : internalised independence
opposite = shame

Question 11

honour in women

Answer 11

based in chastity

loyalty and obedience

Question 12

christianisation of knighthood

Answer 12

church tried to control society in a mix of co-operation and competition
through doctrine and special ritual they christianised knighthood
crusades