Courtly love
Courtly love is a medieval literary tradition that idealizes devotion to an often unattainable beloved through formal service, restraint, and praise.
Troubadour: A poet-composer who performed vernacular lyric songs, especially in medieval Occitania. Troubadours established the lyric voice of devoted service to an often distant beloved.
Feudalism: A medieval social and political order organized through landholding, obligations, and personal bonds. Courtly lovers recast feudal service and loyalty as obligations to a beloved.
Domnei: A medieval Occitan term for a lover's service or submission to a lady. It expresses the lover's position as a devoted servant within the lyric relationship.
Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart: A Chrétien de Troyes romance in which Lancelot undertakes perilous quests for Queen Guinevere. Lancelot's obedience and suffering dramatize devotion to a socially unavailable beloved.
Petrarchism: A European poetic tradition imitating Petrarch's themes, forms, and idealized beloved. Petrarchism carries courtly longing into Renaissance lyric poetry.
Occitan literature: Literature written in the Occitan language, including the medieval lyric of southern France. Its early courtly lyrics supplied many conventions later associated with courtly love.
Chivalry: An idealized code of conduct associated with medieval knights, including courage, loyalty, and courtesy. Courtly devotion borrows chivalric language of service, honor, and disciplined conduct.
Petrarchan lover: A poetic persona who idealizes an unattainable beloved and voices frustrated desire. This later literary figure inherits courtly conventions of distance, praise, and longing.
The Art of Courtly Love: A medieval Latin treatise attributed to Andreas Capellanus that discusses love and its rules. Its prescriptions and contradictions expose the tradition's formal, sometimes playful logic.
Sonnets to Orpheus: A 1923 poetry cycle by Rainer Maria Rilke that uses Orpheus to explore art and transformation. Rilke's poetry offers a modern alternative to love lyric centered on possession or service.