Description
Book SynopsisThe book provides the first comprehensive study of love and ethics in Middle English and Middle Scots poems written at the close of the Middle Ages by Geoffrey Chaucer, James I, Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, and Gavin Douglas. It shows that medieval poems often reveal a pattern in which an individual moves from selfish to selfless concerns, and how this movement is incited by love, while fulfilled through virtue. By taking into account the English and Scottish cultural contexts, as well as other traditions of writing, the book shows how the ideas on human well-being were disseminated and adjusted to meet cultural changes. In this, the book contributes to a discussion on what constitutes “mindful” or “virtuous” living, a discussion that is as relevant today as it was in the Middle Ages.
Table of ContentsLove and Moral Perfection
Love and Reason. The Romaunt of the Rose, The Goldyn Targe
Love and Necessity. Chaucer’s Boethian Poems, The Kingis Quair
Love and Honor. The House of Fame, The Palis of Honoure
Love and the Common Good. The Parliament of Fowls, The Thrissill and the Rois
The Virtue of Love. Troilus and Criseyde, The Testament of Cresseid
