The Art of Courtly Love

Book Description

After becoming popularized by the troubadours of southern France in the twelfth century, the social system of 'courtly love' soon spread. Evidence of the influence of courtly love in the culture and literature of most of western Europe spans centuries.

This unabridged edition of The Art of Courtly Love codifies life at Queen Eleanor's court at Poitiers between 1170 and 1174 into 'one of those capital works which reflect the thought of a great epoch, which explain the secret of a civilization.' This translation of a work that may be viewed as didactic, mocking, or merely descriptive, preserves the attitudes and practices that were the foundation of a long and significant tradition in English literature.

Customer Reviews:

Interesting look at medieval manners and customs.......2003-01-23

This is a must read if you are at all interested in medieval life. Aside from being the premiere treatise on "courtly love," there are interesting historical issues raised by this book.

For example, in the section "What persons are fit for love," Capellanus says that "Age is a bar, because after the sixtieth year in a man and the fiftieth in a woman...passion cannot develop into love..." The conventional wisdom holds that most people did not live much past 40 in those days. Evidently Capellanus ran across a few people in their 50s and 60s, in addition to his encounters with nuns. (You will have to read the book to find out more)

How Capellanus reshaped romance..........2002-08-22

Andreas Capellanus, chaplain at the court of Countess Marie de Champagne, daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine, wrote this treatise on courtly love in the 12th century--ostensibly to educate a friend--and thus set a new standard for lovers. Capellanus' work may have been intended as a satirical reworking of Ovid's Ars Amatoria, or it might have been influenced by the Arabic views of love in The Dove's Neck-Ring by Ibn Hazm a Mozarabic writer of the 11th century. Whatever his intent, his work, The Art of Courtly Love, influenced the aristocracy's ideas of social relationships, and the portrayal of male-female roles in romantic literature, well into the Renaissance. In a series of conversational examples between men and women of various classes together with a list of rules of love, Capellanus draws distinctions between the relationship of marriage and the relations between true lovers. Within the context of courtly love the true lover is required to pay homage to and do the bidding of his ladylove above all else. True love according to Capellanus does not exist between husband and wife, but is a state sought by all outside of the marriage bed. He states, attributing the sentiment to "M., Countess of Champagne", that "Love cannot acknowledge any rights of his between husband and wife". This attitude is understandable in a society where marriages were contracted for position and fortune.

In one of the sets of rules for lovers set forth by Capellanus he states that "No one should be deprived of love without the very best of reasons". This would justify romantic relationships of which women were otherwise deprived. Before modern times, love was rarely a factor in choosing a spouse, and yet it is perhaps the strongest force that drives mankind. Capellanus both acknowledges and rationalizes the power love holds over men and women alike. The path to true love is never easy, and the rules of courtly love would have it that where there is love there, too, is suffering. It is by his great distress that the beloved can see how greatly the lover loves. Although love that suffers chastely and from afar is held in esteem, Capellanus also says that kisses and embraces are "indications that love is to follow" and should not be overdone if the lover is not sincere. This seems to acknowledge the human need for sexual action to follow seduction. Appropriate action with gifts and flattery is described by Capellanus in his dialogs for seducing the beloved. Care must be taken in the choice of gifts, since by the rules of courtly love exchange of valuable objects debases the relationship and lovers may only accept those "little gifts" "useful for the care of the person" or "pleasing to look at" as long as there is no "avarice" involved. This rule led to the carrying by knights of tokens or "favors"--gifts of their ladies--in tournaments throughout the Middle Ages. Seduction has four steps according to Capellanus: first should come the offer of service (or if by a lady the giving of hope to the suitor), followed by the granting of kisses and the embrace--in which a couple may even lie down together nude, having no actual sexual congress, with no blame attached. If the final fourth step is taken, yielding to sexual relations, the lover is committed and can not withdraw from the relationship with honor for any less reason than a seriously dishonorable action on the part of his or her partner. These elements of courtly love appear again and again in literature of the Middle Ages from Chaucer's "Knight's Tale" to Malory's Morte D'Arthur.

Perhaps the most interesting influence in Capellanus' life is that of Eleanor of Aquitaine, queen of England and wife to King Henry II. Eleanor was already instrumental in the production of early courtly romances, especially the Arthurian tales. Wace dedicated his "Brut" to her, Thomas of Britian wrote his "Tristram" at her instigation and Chretien de Troyes wrote his Lancelot romances from material given him by her daughter Marie. Eleanor's life reads much like one of these romances. Duchess of Aquitaine, she married Louis, the king of France, at a young age, and produced two daughters Marie and Alix. She met Henry II, six years her junior, before he became king of England and then divorced Louis, on a consanguinarity technicality, to marry him. The rumor was that she and Henry, like Lancelot and Guinevere, met secretly while she was still legally married to Louis. When Henry later tired of her she again took up regency of the Aquitaine for her son Richard, and with her daughter Marie held liberal and literary courts where troubadours sang and courtiers waited upon ladies. Together Eleanor and Marie set a standard of chivalrous manners that changed the behavior of all knighthood. As a pastime these highborn ladies held "courts of love" wherein they tested the behavior of lovers, by the standards set in Capellanus' treatise, vindicating those they found to be "true lovers" and pronouncing penances for those found lacking. If not for the influence of the strong minded Marie de Champagne and the formidable Eleanor--women who wanted more of love than the usual marriage of convenience--Capellanus might have been relegated to the obscurity of the Church's proscribed text list, and our standards of romance might be very different today.

Its not about love, its about behavior.......2002-04-12

I bought this as research material for codes of conduct. The feel of the book shows the writers background in the clergy, the book focuses more on the traditional courting behavior than on love itself. Its wonderful as a complex example of a code of conduct, but sheds little light in the direction of true relationships. Very interesting as a period piece, its seems to be more reflective of the romantic visions of the middle ages than the reality.

Excellent background for Middle Ages history buffs........2001-07-15

A series of dialogues between men and women of various social ranks concerning why love should be accepted or rejected, written during the Middle Ages. There are other bits, such as Courts of Love and long letters written to this or that person, but that's mostly it.

I found it an interesting read. You hear a lot about "courtly love", but nobody really talks about the underpinnings of the tradition. Since the writer was a monk, one truly wonders just what in the world he knows about love, but upon reading the dialogues, one becomes convinced that this isn't about love. It's about social behavior within a certain context, within a very narrow time frame within a very narrow part of Europe, one indulged in by a very narrow group of people. And yet when we think of the Middle Ages, we think of courtly love. There's a reason for that, and reading this book will help the introspective reader see why.

The 5 stars were for how it stands as a primary source documenting the period. It is excellent in that regard. It does drag sometimes, and many of the dialogues are, indeed, repetitive-sounding. But that's how medieval documents WERE. They wanted to be sure the point got across, I think. I'm also half-convinced that the writer wasn't being entirely serious in some places. Again, he was a monk, and it's possible it was just an exercise in logic, as the forward to this book explains in good detail.

I'm not sure I'd want to read this if I were just a casual reader. It won't give many hints about how to romance someone in OUR time period -- nowadays we like passion, not logic, to be the impetus for beginning a love affair. But it will give the history student something to chew on and I think it's an essential piece of understanding one of the weirder aspects of the Middle Ages.

Revealing book from 11th Century on Attaining Love.......1998-02-07

This is the sort of book you look for, not a scholarly book compiled from various sources and presented for a modern reader, but a treatise written at the time that Courtly Love was at its height in France. This book consists of three sections. The first has dialogues between men and women of different classes, which are of a man trying to reason with a woman for her love. In the book there are two nice stories, but the third section was the most suprprising. The first two sections summarize the rules of love to a young man the author knows named Walter, but in the third he gives his own opinion about pursuing love and women to the boy that gave what seemed like a light work the ending of a heavy and controversial commentary. I liked it, and you will especially as preparation to reading books of the era such as King Arthur. I gave the book a rating of 8 only because the dialogues all seemed to be similar, but on the whole its a great book.

Revelations of Divine Love (Penguin Classics)

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Classic work of English mysticism
Profound and inspiring
Wordy and Obtuse
Julian is #1
God as Lover

Revelations of Divine Love (Penguin Classics)
Julian of Norwich
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
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ASIN: 0140446737

Book Description

1901. Without any special study of the literature of mysticism for purposes of comparison, in reading Julian's book one is struck by a few characteristics wherein it differs from many other mystical writings, as well as by qualities that belong to most or all of that general designation. Julian does not set out to teach methods of any kind for the gradual drawing near of man to God, but to record and show forth a revelation, granted once, of God's actual nearness to the soul, and for this revelation she herself had been prepared by the stirring of her conscience, her love and her understanding, in a word of her faith.

Customer Reviews:

Classic work of English mysticism.......2006-11-15

Julian was an anchoress living in medieval England, before the turbulence of the English civil wars and Reformation tore the religious life of the country apart.

England was generally not a fertile ground for mysticism, compared with continental Europe or Greece. While there were some exceptions, generally England did not produce many religious thinkers who could be classified as 'mystics.'

Despite this, there were some great mystics such as Julian. Julian experienced a series of visions at the age of 30 when a serious illness almost killed her. Today we might call such experiences 'near death experiences' and write them off as unusual chemical activity in the brain occuring when it is close to death, but back then Julian interpreted it as God's revelation to her. These visions included visions showing the love God has for the creation, the possible universal salvation of all on the last day, and also about the nature of God's love for us despite the dangers of sin and divine judgement.

In a troubled age as our own we can hope with Julian that God's love will prevail and in the end 'All will be well.'

Profound and inspiring.......2000-12-06

Julian's utter devotion to God amazes me. Sure, the medieval imagery, symbols, and style of writing take a little getting used to--but her intense desire for intimacy with her Lord is inspiring.

As a devout (mostly Protestant) Christian, I highly recommend this work. Read it and you'll understand why people have been drawn closer to Him through Julian's writing.

Wordy and Obtuse.......2000-10-15

Julian of Norwich, an anchoress from 14th century England who is best known for this theological tract, sets out an interesting belief system in which she concentrates on the womanly nature of Christ and God. Julian had sixteen visions which she referred to as "showings" while she was suffering an illness. These showings revealed divine messages from God that Julian then set to paper through scribes.

In my opinion, most of her revelations are tiresome to slog through, and she is a master of reptition. Also, her descriptions of the crucifixition are pretty gory and unsettling, which might bother some readers. This book is probably best read in very short bursts so that it's easier to absorb the material and ponder what Julian is trying to say.

There are certainly good things to say about this book. Her parable about man falling in sin is excellent and fun to read. I'll probably read this section again and again. I'm also glad I read this as part of a class on the Middle Ages. The background I learned in this class makes some of the text a bit clearer. It's important to understand that Europe was being rocked by the Black Death and that the Church was wrapped up in a schism while Julian was pondering her visions. The upsetting descriptions of Christ's suffering and his motherly attention to man makes more sense when the reader understands that half of Europe was dying and faith was being seriously challenged. Be sure and look at the appendices, because there is a reprint of a brief selection of the Revelations written in Middle English. It's neat to read it as it was written and try and make sense of the words.

I won't read the whole book again, but I would say that it should be read once, especially for those studying European history or theological systems.

Julian is #1.......2000-09-03

I really liked her book. She made me feel good inside and she made me smile. I like to smile. My mom says everyone should read her book. Mommy's also helping me write this letter. I like her book and I wish everyone could read it.

Kristy

God as Lover.......2000-08-21

I enjoyed reading this book. It is an account of 16 visions which appeared to Mother Julian (1342-1416) along with her meditations of the experience. She was a recluse who lived in Norwich in what is now the British Isles. I had not considered the LORD my God as my lover until I learned this from Julian. In her natural style, she explained to me the love God has for each of us. This statement of hers has meant a great deal to me, " Some of us believe that God is almighty, and may do everything; and that he is all wise and can do everything; but that he is all love, and >>will < < do everything - there we draw back. And as I see it, this ignorance is the greatest of all hindrances to God's lovers." I feel that this is a message from which many may benefit, regardless of creed. In addition, I learned a bit about the solitary religious life which was popular in the Middle Ages. If you are interested in learning of the love God has for you, or in the religion of the Middle Ages, this book will be interesting to you.

The Cambridge Companion to Ovid (Cambridge Companions to Literature)

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The Cambridge Companion to Ovid (Cambridge Companions to Literature)

Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0521772818

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A companion to one of the greatest writers of classical antiquity, and arguably the single most influential ancient poet for post-classical literature and culture, is long overdue. Chapters by leading authorities discuss the backgrounds and contexts for Ovid, the individual works, and his influence on later literature and art. Coverage of essential information is combined with exciting new critical approaches.

In Love with the Way: Chinese Poems of the Tang Dynasty (The Calligrapher's Notebooks)

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In Love with the Way: Chinese Poems of the Tang Dynasty (The Calligrapher's Notebooks)
Francois Cheng
Manufacturer: Shambhala
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 157062979X
Release Date: 2002-10-08

Book Description

The poetry selected for this volume comes from the Tang Dynasty (618-907), an era when the influence of Buddhism was at its strongest in China. The best loved and most influential of all Chinese poems come from this period. Like all books in the Shambhala Calligraphy series, In Love with the Way takes a classic spiritual text that has been a subject for calligraphers for many years—and uses it to showcase a uniquely modern example of the calligrapher's art, bringing the text to life in a striking new way. In Love with the Way is accompanied by François Cheng's introductory essay on poetry of the Tang period, and by a closing essay on the work of the calligrapher, Fabienne Verdier. Calligraphy (from the Greek for "beautiful writing") is an art where word and image meet, where the artist strives to give visual expression to the meaning of words in a way that transcends the text while remaining completely faithful to it. It is a discipline that has been invested with spiritual significance wherever it has arisen—and it has arisen throughout the world in every age, in virtually every language, culture, and religion. The Shambhala Calligraphy series is a collection of books devoted to contemporary expressions of this "art of the word," featuring contemporary calligraphers' striking new interpretations of texts that have been traditional subjects for calligraphic interpretation. Whether in Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, or Chinese pictographs, the characters, words, and sentences are brought to life anew here in a choreography of mind, hand, and heart by which letter and spirit fuse in a single stroke.

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Sextus Propertius: The Augustan Elegist
Francis Cairns
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Propertius: Elegies Book IV (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics)

ASIN: 0521864577

Book Description

In 30-15 BC Sextus Propertius composed at Rome four books of elegies which range from erotic to learned to political and exhibit an unparalleled richness of themes, concepts and language. This book investigates their sources and motives, examining Propertius’ family background in Umbrian Asisium and tracing his career as he sought through poetry to restore his family’s fortunes after the Civil Wars. Propertius’ progress within the Roman poetic establishment depended on his patrons - Tullus, 'Gallus', Maecenas and Augustus. Initially his poetry was influenced radically by his elegiac predecessor C. Cornelius Gallus, arguably also the ‘Gallus’ who jointly patronised Propertius’ first book. New heuristic techniques help to recover the impact on Propertius of Cornelius Gallus’ (mainly lost) elegies. Propertius’ subsequent move into Maecenas’, and then Augustus’, patronage had an equally powerful, ideological, impact; in his latter books he became (alongside Virgil and Horace) a major and committed Augustan voice.

Plato: Symposium (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics)

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passionately rational loving
Love, Grecian Style
One of those works that will be read forever, hopefully...
One of Plato's materpieces
The Wit and Wisdom of Love

Plato: Symposium (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics)
Plato
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0521295238

Book Description

Plato’s Symposium is the most literary of all his works and one which all students of classics are likely to want to read whether or not they are studying Plato’s philosophy. But the reader does need help in appreciating both the artistry and the arguments, and in comprehending the social and cultural background against which the ‘praise of love’ is delivered. Sir Kenneth Dover provides here a sympathetic and modern edition of the kind that is long overdue. It consists of an introduction, the Greek text accompanied by a very abbreviated critical apparatus, and a commentary on the text which is intended to elucidate the Greek, to make the philosophical argument intelligible, and to relate the content of what is said to the concepts and assumptions of contemporary morality and society. An edition for students of Greek in universities and the upper forms of schools.

Customer Reviews:

passionately rational loving.......2005-10-21

The Symposium of Plato is a profoundly thought-provoking, entertaining and inspiring piece of philosophical writing. It is very short, yet infinitely more substantial than many longer works.

We are in Athens, 416 B.C.E. The scene is a banquet at the house of Agathon, who had the day before celebrated the victory of his tragedy. By the end of the party, seven men - and one absent but central woman - will have presented their views on the nature and meaning of Eros, or love.

There is no difficulty in keeping the characters distinct in our minds. Plato has great fun contrasting the opinions - and verbal styles - of tragic poet, comic poet, politician, physician and the rest, allowing absurdities and profundities to mingle freely. Socrates is very appealing, saint-like, yet utterly down-to-earth, playing his usual role of a 'philosopher' - one who 'knows only that he does not know' - always in passionate search of the truth, but catching only revelatory glimpses of its perfection.

Phaedrus gives the first speech, praising lovers' (especially homosexual) passion and loyalty, which makes them perform mighty and heroic deeds. Pausanias differentiates between virtuous, or spiritual love, and common, or bodily love. Virtuous love between men should not be primarily about sex, but about improvement and education of the soul. Eryximachus, the doctor, makes a mostly irrelevant (and boring) speech, claiming nature's contrasting elements illustrate the need to balance the healthy and unhealthy aspects of love. Aristophanes then delivers a brilliantly memorable speech, hilarious and poignant by turns, telling of how humans were once two-in-one, back to back, with two heads, four arms and four legs, with three combinations of sexes, male/male, male/female, and female/female. Their strength and speed made them threaten the gods, so Zeus cut them in half, leaving them to search forever for their other halves, and through love attempt to regain their original oneness. Agathon then gives an over-the-top, ecstatic speech, praising love as the youngest, most graceful of the gods, saying he brought order to heaven itself, 'empties men of disaffection and fills them with affection', etc, climaxing with the suggestion we all follow in love's footsteps, 'sweetly singing in his honour'.

It is then Socrates' turn. He performs for all conversations that took place between himself when much younger and Diotima, a 'wise' woman from Mantineia, to whom he had gone for instruction in the highest truths of love. In sum, the lesson is that love is the desire for the everlasting possession of the good and beautiful, which brings happiness. We crave immortality, in order to be happy eternally. We love our offspring, artistic works, laws and institutions, because they are all attempts to achieve an immortal name. These, Diotima claims, are the 'lesser' mysteries of love.

The 'greater' proceed from the 'lesser' in ascending steps. From one beautiful body the lover creates 'fair notions', then he sees all bodies are similar and equally worthy of love. From bodies he proceeds to the beauty of the virtuous mind, then the beauties of institutions and laws, climbing from there to the beauty of the sciences, until, after much growth in wisdom, he reaches the vision of all creation as beautiful. The final step is to rise to the contemplation of unchanging, eternal, absolute beauty itself. To spend your life in union with perfect beauty allows you to bring forth 'real' things, not 'images' and 'be immortal, if mortal man may'.

A drunken Alcibiades bursts in at this point, and gives a rambling, often funny, speech about his love for Socrates and how he - a very beautiful man - was spurned sexually by him. He describes Socrates' near-supernatural control of himself, totally above the effects of pain and pleasure. The book ends with a description of Socrates' companions all falling asleep as dawn breaks (after all-night drinking) and his going about his usual day.

Throughout the Symposium, Plato makes it clear that sexual relations are not the best thing at all for 'lovers'; they who wish for the highest happiness must seek to grow in virtue and wisdom and become increasingly detached from earthly pleasures. This is the origin of the phrase 'Platonic love'. Women were not considered their intellectual and spiritual equals in Athens at the time, so men of sophistication had to look to each other for emotional sustenance.

What then, we may ask, can the Symposium offer human beings today who are not interested in purely mystical/intellectual living and prefer the sexual and emotional satisfactions found in personal relationships?

A great deal, I believe. In his introduction Benjamin Jowett states that Plato 'is conscious that the highest and noblest things in the world are not easily severed from the sensual desires, or may even be regarded as a spiritual form of them'. In other words, earthly pleasures and transcendent ones are inextricable. Plato used words such as 'good' and 'virtue' to describe freeing oneself from the world of the senses, by using our reason to choose correctly who - or what - to attach to as we move through life. If we choose correctly, be it friends, sexual or lifetime partners, we strengthen our sense of inner freedom, until finally we experience it at the deepest, mystical level - the profound shift in consciousness that Plato was pointing to as the highest good - which in and of itself is morally and values-neutral.

The genius of Plato is that he communicates the total commitment required to attain perfect freedom, and the moral obligation of all human beings to strive for the happiness it alone can deliver.

Love, Grecian Style.......2004-02-14

.
Plato's "Symposium" is the story of Agathon's dinner party where conversation takes place with a small group of men, who recline, eat and drink around a table offering their views on Love. This story is an amazing account of how intelligent and yet so different a culture the men from ancient Greece were compared to our society today. Each speaker has this most amazing ability to tell two stories at the very same time, an creative artistic movement of what love 'is' in each and every story. applying and , metaphorically. intertwining a cultural, mythological story of the gods, giving far deeper meaning. In addition to this, the love relationships and sexual nature of these men also permeate an entire cultural feel to the story, enveloping a radical differentiation from our de-mystified and de-enchanted world back into a once existing world of substantial meaning and profundity.

Phaedrus, speaks first and relates how love is the greatest good, the beautiful, is shameful of ugly things and how only lovers are willing to die for one another.

The second speaker, Pausanias, applies two types of love, one Aphrodite, a common base love working at random with men's feelings, for money, for loving physical bodies, boys, men and women. The other type of love, from a much younger goddess, being a higher type, the heavenly, who only loves other men and boy love, but this is not physical body love but from affection of the mind of virtue and wisdom..

Aristophanes has the hiccups, so it is Eryximachus, a doctor, who speaks third, applying the idea of love as a double love; "for bodily health and disease are by common consent different things and unlike, and what is unlike desires and loves things unlike." p.82 The god of art was said to implant love as a healing art, all such love guided by this god. "It is quite illogical to say that a harmony is at variance with itself or is made up of notes still at variance." "So love as a whole has great and mighty power, or in a word, omnipotence ."

Aristophanes, the comic writer, gives a moving account of Love as a absolute human need, a desire for completion to the point of each person once shaped differently being cut in half, taking our current shape, in need of the other to complete the whole of what we once were. "For first there were three sexes, not two as at present, male and female, but also a third having both together," and they were violent, strong and forceful and would even attack the gods. So Zeus and the other gods held a meeting and decided to cut them in halves and make them weaker. From then on, they were sexually drawn to one another, both heterosexual and homosexual, reasons all due to the way of the cutting of the halves.Lesbianism and boy to man love is freely spoken of and justified according to this story of the gods. His moving speech on the beauty and virtue of love however, is according to Socrates, true only in the sense of romanticism and fictional idolatrous admiration of what love should be. For Socrates found such a romantic explanation of love as untrue to what love really is and what love contains, as it does not contain all the beauty and good.

The fourth speaker, Agathon gives a moving speech on the beauty and virtue of love however, it is according to Socrates, true only in the sense of romanticism and fictional idolatrous admiration of what love should be. "For all the gods are happy . . and love is the happiest of them all being the most beautiful and best . . the youngest of gods." In his speech, love is every good, virtuosos and beautiful thing.

The last speaker, Socrates, found such a romantic explanation of love to be untrue, for what desires good, virtue and wisdom is only something that does not contain such, something lacking, and therefore lacking it desires such things. Love only desires what it lacks. Love is neither beautiful nor ugly. "To have right opinion without being able to give reason is neither to understand nor is it ignorance. Right opinion is no doubt something between knowledge and ignorance."

It is so interesting how common and free sexuality and homosexuality were, how each man present commented on the beauty of the young men in their glory of youth. Alcibiades, jealous of Agathon, also a young beautiful male, makes a moving speech how Socrates refused his love and how other like young men, also were moved with his amazing wisdom and prose.

While women are generally discounted, and the bonding of affection in male love was considered a higher love by Pausanias, Socrates explanation of love, by far the most profound, was one he received from a woman named Diotima. Here, as another reviewer has stated, shows Plato's the egalitarianism and wisdom, like that of the beauty and ultimate goal of Love.

Later a group of men crash the party and the drinking really gets started. Some leave, while Socrates stays all night, never loosing integrity from his drinking and leaves with all his integrity.

One of those works that will be read forever, hopefully..........2002-09-11

Perhaps the most "literary" of all Plato's works, "Symposium" is the story of a dinner party gathering of great (and a few not so great) minds, whom engage in a discussion in praise of eros, or passionate love. It is considered literary because it is highly metaphorical, it's characters are drawn well and in some cases unforgettably, and it succeeds on many levels. It is not uncommon for Socrates to elevate the subject of discussion in any given dialogue to that of our earthly existence, and how we should go about it. Perhaps shocking to readers unfamiliar with the Greeks is the prevalence of homosexual love, particularly with young boys. But, if nothing else, this is an insight into ancient culture. And the absolutely magnificent speeches given by Aristophanes and Socrates remain profound and beautiful to modern readers, regardless of whether or not the other speeches are unpalatable to some. Also, Alcibiades, drunken, hilarious rant is not to be missed. Read in a single sitting, this work is almost sublime.

One of Plato's materpieces.......2002-05-07

Enthralling, entertaining, educational, and thought-provoking, "The Symposium" is one of Plato's classics. A group of men gathered at a dinner party in ancient Greece discuss the topic of love. Each man offers his view or definition of love, and the results are all different, engaging, and full of symbolism. Although it is a short book, one must not read it once and put it away; it ought to be be read again and again just to compare to what is "picked up on" each time. One thing always puzzles me: I will never know why Plato included the doctor (his name escapes me at the moment) have a bout of hiccups during someone's speech. I have never come up with a satisfactory answer - nor has any one I know, either. Nevertheless, this is an excellent read that I highly recommend for anyone - student and nonstudent. Enjoy!

The Wit and Wisdom of Love.......2000-11-10

Plato's "Symposium" will always be read because there will always be people who question the nature of Love. Agathon's dinner party is the scene of a conversation between a small group of men, who go around the table offering their views on Love. What does Love mean to us to-day? Reading over the responses of the dinner-guests and their host, we find the same range of answers in Ancient Greece that we are likely to find now.

Phaedrus and Pausanias are utilitarians and materialists. Phaedrus looks at love between people and a proto-Burkean love for government and state. Pausanias complicates the argument, saying that there are two different kinds of love, one which is common and one which is heavenly - yet still oriented towards the real and the tangible. Eryximachus is a proto-Swedenborg, trying to reconcile or harmonize the two kinds of love.

The jewels of Plato's "Symposium" are Aristophanes and Socrates. Aristophanes gives us the profoundly moving depiction of Love as a fundamental human need, a desire for completion. For a writer of comedy, whose aim as an art form is forgiveness and acceptance, Aristophanes's explanation is no surprise, though its depth is amazing. While women are generally discounted throughout the "Symposium," not only does Socrates, as we might expect, completely astound his audience (both inside the book and out) with his progressively logical and ascendant view of Love, but he also does it through the voice of a woman, Diotima. When we realize that Socrates is a character in this fiction, and that his words originate in a woman, the egalitarianism and wisdom of Plato the author truly shines forth, like the absolute beauty he claims as the ultimate goal of Love.

Book Description

In the first century a.d., Ovid, author of the groundbreaking epic poem Metamorphoses, came under severe criticism for The Art of Love, which playfully instructed women in the art of seduction and men in the skills essential for mastering the art of romantic conquest. In this remarkable translation, James Michie breathes new life into the notorious Roman’s mock-didactic elegy. In lyrical, irreverent English, he reveals love’s timeless dilemmas and Ovid’s enduring brilliance as both poet and cultural critic.

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Not a manual........2005-05-05

Publius Ovidius Naso was born in 43 B.C. and died in 18 A.D.
Augustus banished him for unknown reasons to Tomi, a barren place near the coast of the Black Sea.
Another famous work. Scholars agree that it's his best achievement. Ovid is a master in describing feminin emotions ( see also 'Heroides').
It would be wrong to see 'The Art of Love' as some sort of a manual. It's a parody of the poetical manuals that existed in his time.

Brilliant and witty.......2003-07-11

I read the Duane Humphries translation. His preface is superbly written, so one would hope that his translation possesses similar flair. Since I don't read Latin, I cannot attest to his accuracy.

He observes in his preface the commonalities between Ovid's scene and that of our contemporary world. You will get a strong sense of a society that was very similar to that of our own.

If you want some action!.......1999-11-16

This is one of the best books that i have read on "love".Intellectual eroticism always gives a sophisticated veneer to less lofty primordial sexual impulses.Throws new light on the Roman decadence and hedonistic society.So if you want to take a journey and delve into the very essense of Ovid's eroticism and human sexuality or just learn to show some 'love' read this book.

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Medieval Lovers

The Medieval Art of Love
Michael Camille
Manufacturer: Harry N Abrams
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0810915448

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Medieval Lovers.......2000-04-14

The research developed by Professor Camille (Chicago University), is a good example of vitality and imagination put into the service of Art History. His most recent contribution as a book is The medieval art of love, which helps us to plunge in the world of medieval eroticism by constructing a wonderful work of synthesis which, embellished with superb illustrations, highlights the most remarkable contributions to this topic from the fields of literature, the history of mentalities and the visual arts.

The 12th and 13th centuries were baptized as "aetas ovidiana" (Traube), because of the high level reached by poets writing in Latin. I would dare to add another reason: in that time erotic literature knew a renaissance, which had as a result the eclosion of a profane iconography aimed to put in images what delighted the ears of cultivated people: we must bear in mind that the Middle Ages were an audio-visual time.

Cistercian sensibility was not alien to this process: the deep devotion that Saint Bernard felt for the Virgin explains in a good measure the new valoration of women since that time: we just have to remember that Gothic churches reserved portals to Mary. That was also the time when poems devoted to the Mother of God flourished.

Camille pulls together his book following the steps "traditionally associated with love": Visus (Love's looks), alloquium (Love's Gifts), contactus (Love's places), oscula (Love's signs) and factum (Love's goal).

With a very accesible language and an agile style, he guides us through the fascinating world of manuscripts, tapestries, jewelry or carvings devoted to eros and sexuality. Being a volume aimed to a wide audience, the author opted to limit the bibliographic references to a minimun and, consequently, he reccurs not to footnotes or erudite digressions, which allows an uninterrupted reading.

Book Description

The Art of Love celebrates the bi-millennium of Ovid's cycle of sophisticated and subversive didactic poems on love, traditionally assumed to have been brought to completion around AD 2. Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love) and Remedia Amoris (Cures for Love), which purport to teach young Roman men and women how to be good lovers, were partly responsible for the poet's exile from Rome under the emperor Augustus. None the less they exerted great influence over ancient and later love poetry. This is the first collection in English devoted to the poems, and brings together many of the leading figures in the field of Latin literature and Ovidian studies from the British Isles, Germany, Italy, and the United States. It offers a range of perspectives on the poetics, politics, and erotics of the poems, beginning with a critical survey of recent research, and concluding with papers on the ancient, medieval, and modern reception of the poems.

Murder Among Friends : Violation of Philia in Greek Tragedy

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An Informative Study For a Popular Topic

Murder Among Friends : Violation of Philia in Greek Tragedy
Elizabeth S. Belfiore
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0195131495

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Modern scholars have followed Aristotle in noting the importance of philia (kinship or friendship) in Greek tragedy, especially the large number of plots in which kin harm or murder one another. More than half of the thirty-two extant tragedies focus on an act in which harm occurs or is about to occur among philoi who are blood kin. In contrast, Homeric epic tends to avoid the portrayal of harm to kin. It appears, then, that kin killing does not merely occur in what Aristotle calls the "best" Greek tragedies; rather, it is a characteristic of the genre as a whole. In Murder Among Friends, Elizabeth Belfiore supports this thesis with an in-depth examination of the crucial role of philia in Greek tragedy. Drawing on a wealth of evidence, she compares tragedy and epic, discusses the role of philia relationships within Greek literature and society, and analyzes in detail the pattern of violation of philia in five plays: Aeschylus' Suppliants, Sophocles' Philoctetes and Ajax, and Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris and Andromache. Appendixes further document instances of violation of philia in all the extant tragedies as well as in the lost plays of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E.

Customer Reviews:

An Informative Study For a Popular Topic.......2007-01-05

Belfiore's book on kin-killing is pretty well thought-out, and her writing is direct and to the point without feeling like a list of power point notes. The idea of kin-killing (and similar inversions of "proper" Greek relationships) is a fertile topic. It ties-in rather well with studies about the inversion(s) of ritual and gender that occur so frequently in Greek tragedy (see texts by Rush Rhem, Nicole Loraux, et al.). I have two complaints. One is kind of unfair because it can be and has been leveled at every critic ever: at times it feels like she's really forcing themes and motifs that are treated in specific plays onto Greek tragedy as a whole. But what I do regret after having read this text is the fact that most of her model texts (those tragedies she uses to illustrate her point) are somewhat peripheral or unpopular. I mean, Aeschylus' Oresteia and the three extant Theban plays by Sophocles are extremely popular, and Philoctetes and Ajax are often referred to (although rarely read outside of Classics courses proper). But Euripides' Ion? Surely not when we could be looking at Bacchae or Medea. The better part of the book traces the canonical Orestes mythologies. Admittedly, part of the reason for this is that these texts ARE often ignored (how often does one focus on Orestes outside of Aeschylus?). But the effect that concentrating on these relatively obscure texts (at times) had on me was to make it feel like the tragedies were being fitted into a theory rather than the theory accommodating the tragedies. That said, there are a lot of lucid observations applied to individual tragedies and in locating at least one general theme that occurs (at some level - not necessarily a dominant one) in most extant and known tragedies. There's also a useful discussion/definition of the Greek idea of "philia" (it's part of the group of words related to the verb "philo," to love) but it's application in the Greek world was pervasive and multivalent. Konstan has written a lot about the topic as well. She engages him directly at one point.

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