[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

Name calling? The source you quoted was inundated with equivocation: "may", "likely", "probably" - is Lacy a dissembling scholar or is he running for office? In either case, his delivery was weak.

A medieval scholar “who can’t make a single straightforward statement″ would have not reached the level of eminence and number of publications that Lacy has. Lacy is naturally choosing to not make straightforward statements when discussing something in an encyclopedia article which is controversial. You would apparently prefer that he be dishonest by making straightforward statements. But that would not fit with what he is here writing about. Anyone who wishes can read of his accomplishments and his many books on http://www.personal.psu.edu/njl2/ , including authorship of the book The Literature of Courtly Love.

You grossly misrepresent why the author writes as he does and use that to avoid coming to terms with what he does say.

You insulted Joseph Campbell, trying to minimize his points by claiming that he "greatly oversimplifies", …

But he does. I greatly respect much of Campbell’s writings, but consider almost all his monomyth theory to be nonsense. See the criticisms of the theory at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth . See also
http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/notebooks/joseph-campbell.html ,
http://storyfanatic.com/articles/sto...-heros-journey ,
http://autotelic.com/the_hack_of_a_thousand_faces ,
http://www.andrewrilstone.com/search...eph%20Campbell (click on “Show older posts” twice and start at the bottom to read these articles in numerical order beginning with article 1), and
http://filmcrithulk.wordpress.com/20...-journey-****/ (I admit the constant use of uppercase is annoying).

You insult Norris J. Lacy and then blame me for insulting Joseph Campbell. *Sigh*

… and you ignored the quotes from The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition (1936) by C.S. Lewis, Tolkien's friend and peer, and since the question is whether Tolkien's work exhibited courtly love, then what Lewis referred to in his book is far more cogent to the discussion than a professor who can't make a single straightforward statement.

That Lewis was a friend of Tolkien ought not to make a comment by him in a book more or less credible. The comment should stand on it own. But I am aware of hundreds of medieval romance which includes a marriage of hero and heroine. Apparently medievals liked to ignore questions of property in their escapist literature. Lewis’ comment does not connect with many medieval romances which I have read, including Chrétien’s Yvain, Chrétien’s Erec et Enide, Yder, Li chevaliers as deus espées (The knight of the two swords), Li Bel Inconnu (The Fair Unknown), Fergus, Huon de Bordeaux, and others in which the hero marries a lady-love who is sufficiently beautiful, and wealthy, and well-born to satisfy.

Lewis’ comment had nothing to do with Tolkien’s fantasy writing and appears to me to be very cynical even when considering general medieval society in which divorce was not even allowed.

A medieval scholar “who can’t make a single straightforward statement″ would have not reached the level of eminence and number of publications that Lacy has. Lacy is naturally choosing to not make straightforward statements when discussing something which is controversial. You would apparently prefer that he be dishonest by making straightforward statements. But that would not fit with what he is here writing about. Anyone who wishes can read of his accomplishments and his many books on http://www.personal.psu.edu/njl2/ , including authorship of the book The Literature of Courtly Love.

You grossly misrepresent why the author writes as he does and use that to avoid coming to terms with what he does say.

I offered the most popular of their time. The most popular.

I already mentioned that Malory was not one of the most popular authors of the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries. Jakemon Sakesep’s Châtelain de Coucilet may have been very popular, but most popular? Do you have a credible source for this claim?

I also mentioned The Canterbury Tales and The Decameron, both immensely popular and highly influential to this day. In addition, I referred to Yvain, the Knight and the Lion and Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart. If you'd like more, then read Marie de France, who wrote Bisclavret (which I also mentioned) and Equitan, both dealing with adultery; in fact, over half the lais Marie de France wrote concerned illicit or adulterous lovers. See also Chevrefoil (a Tristanian poem), and Yonec (a tale of a woman in a loveless marriage who has a child through an adulterous affair).

I have read every work you mention more than once, save for Jakemon Sakesep’s Châtelain de Coucilet. You here admit that almost half of the writings of Marie de Fance are not “concerned [with] illicit or adulterous lovers.” As already mentioned by me, Chrétien’s Yvain does not “deal with adulterous or illicit love” at all. For that alone, by most modern definitions of courtly love, it is not a romance of courtly love. Canterbury Tales also contains stories that have no adultery and even those that do are not all courtly, as one would expect of a collection of tales reflecting the many different likes and styles of stories told in Chaucer’s day. The Decameron mostly derives from so-called bourgeois romance and one would expect such a work to be full of tales of cleverness and sexual pranks.

I am also not going to dig up the hundreds of lais and poems written by every trouvere, troubadour or minnesinger who spoke of courtly love.

No-one asked you to. But you might at least admit that if you dug up every work that did not mention courtly love, that list would be longer

I also remain contextual, which is why I keep referring to the 14th century in regards to courtly love, because from a historical standpoint that is when it was wound inextricably with the courts of England and France, discussed and debated most regularly, and used in a real-life sense like a religion of love, often to disastrous effect.

In short you are not talking about medieval literature at general, but only about medieval literature eminating from France and Provence and only some of this literatue in a particular period. Cherry-picking.

I didn't refer to those because they have nothing to do with the literary conventions of courtly love. I also didn't mention fabliaux like Reynard the Fox, and neither did I mention Von Eisenbach's Parzifal. I never stated anywhere that every story written from 1100 to 1500 AD concerned courtly love. Neither did I refer back to the chansons de geste that are not of the courtly love tradition. You keep wanting to muddy the waters with superfluity.

In short you admit that works which arguably concern courtly love are only a portion of medieval literary production but you choose to write about them only and then blame Tolkien for not basing his work of them. You even use the word bowdlerize. It is your attempt to not include these works that seems to be to be closer to bowdlerization, but perhaps better called by some term which might mean the opposite. Would domneiation work?

I didn't mention 1960s films like Mrs. Robinson either. Because that would be out of context. Context. Use it. But in another discussion, please. I see no point in continuing this one.

No. No point.

You admit that Tolkien did not draw from courtly love stories and then suggest that in not doing so that Tolkien was bowdlerizing. Then you fall over backward to claim that any attempt to point out that medieval literature contains loads of literature that was not greatly influenced by courtly love is muddying the water. I say it is clarifying the water.