The Art of Courtly Love

The Art of Courtly Love’s Latin title—De amore, meaning concerning love—reflects the books central theme and purpose: to engage in a sustained inquiry into the nature of love, how to preserve it, and why to repudiate it. While the text’s table of contents expresses the content and subsequent themes, the purpose of Andreas’s inquiry is a subject of debate. Scholars question to what extent the book is meant to be descriptive, didactic, parodic/satiric, or some combination of these. The book’s approach to love lends itself to multiple interpretations.

Andreas’s book is believed to have codified the system of manners that came to be called “courtly love” (the term itself was coined by Gaston Paris in the 19th century). Although the book was likely composed between 1186 and 1190, some believe it depicted life in the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine from 1169 to 1174. In this sense, the book can be said to be descriptive.

While scholars are unsure of how and why this tradition developed, it may have arisen in and spread from Eleanor’s court and went on to influence Western literature for centuries. Scholars debate the extent to which courtly love existed as a social practice, with some believing it may have been more a subject for poetry and song than lived experience.