Violent Passions

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Tracy Adams

   Pages 1-9

3. The Problem of Love

   • Tracy Adams

   Pages 11-36

4. The Mad Lovers of the Ovidian Lais

   • Tracy Adams

   Pages 37-73

5. Marriage and Amor

   • Tracy Adams

   Pages 75-106

6. The Roman d’Eneas and the Erotics of Empire Building

   • Tracy Adams

   Pages 107-144

7. “Making Love” in Béroul and Thomas’s Tristans

   • Tracy Adams

   Pages 145-186

8. The Magister Amoris and His Willful Lovers: Cligés and the Chevalier de la Charrete

   • Tracy Adams

   Pages 187-236

9. Conclusion

   • Tracy Adams

   Pages 237-244

10. Back Matter

    Pages 245-311

    PDF

This book re-evaluates the perception of "courtly love" in Old French verse. Adams traces how these verses explore the emotional trials of amour and propose coping methods for the lovelorn.

• bibliography
• building
• empire
• French
• love
• novel
• perception

"[Adam's] attempt to locate these romantic explorations of amor within the 12th-century's fascination with problematic love is laudable and instructive." - Encomia

Bonnie Wheeler teaches at Southern Methodist University, USA where she directs the Medieval Studies Program. She has edited and co-edited fourteen books, among them Listening to Heloise and Heloise and the Paraclete (forthcoming). She was founding editor of the journal Arthuriana and is series editor for two Palgrave Macmillan book series, The New Middle Ages and Arthurian and Courtly Cultures.

Policies and ethics