The Art of Courtly Love by Andreas Capellanus – Save 37% Today!

Why Buy A The Art of Courtly Love by Andreas Capellanus?
After becoming popularized by the troubadours of southern France in the twelfth century, the social system of courtly love soon spread. Evidence of the influence of courtly love in the culture and literature of most of western Europe spans centuries. This unabridged edition of codifies life at Queen Eleanors court at Poitiers between 1170 and 1174 into one of those capital works which reflect the thought of a great epoch, which explain the secret of a civilization. This translation of a work that may be viewed as didactic, mocking, or merely descriptive, preserves the attitudes and practices that were the foundation of a long and significant tradition in English literature.

Over 6 Five Star Customer Reviews On Amazon!

Readaholic
Prepping for research paper and found this to be as engaging a read as it was informative…

Interesting look at medieval manners and customs
This is a must read if you are at all interested in medieval life. Aside from being the premiere treatise on “courtly love,” there are interesting historical issues raised by this book.

For example, in the section “What persons are fit for love,” Capellanus says that “Age is a bar, because after the sixtieth year in a man and the fiftieth in a woman…passion cannot develop into love…” The conventional wisdom holds that most people did not live much past 40 in those days. Evidently Capellanus ran across a few people in their 50s and 60s, in addition to his encounters with nuns. (You will have to read the book to find out more)

Excellent background for Middle Ages history buffs.
A series of dialogues between men and women of various social ranks concerning why love should be accepted or rejected, written during the Middle Ages. There are other bits, such as Courts of Love and long letters written to this or that person, but that’s mostly it.

I found it an interesting read. You hear a lot about “courtly love”, but nobody really talks about the underpinnings of the tradition. Since the writer was a monk, one truly wonders just what in the world he knows about love, but upon reading the dialogues, one becomes convinced that this isn’t about love. It’s about social behavior within a certain context, within a very narrow time frame within a very narrow part of Europe, one indulged in by a very narrow group of people. And yet when we think of the Middle Ages, we think of courtly love. There’s a reason for that, and reading this book will help the introspective reader see why.

The 5 stars were for how it stands as a primary source documenting the period. It is excellent in that regard. It does drag sometimes, and many of the dialogues are, indeed, repetitive-sounding. But that’s how medieval documents WERE. They wanted to be sure the point got across, I think. I’m also half-convinced that the writer wasn’t being entirely serious in some places. Again, he was a monk, and it’s possible it was just an exercise in logic, as the forward to this book explains in good detail.

I’m not sure I’d want to read this if I were just a casual reader. It won’t give many hints about how to romance someone in OUR time period — nowadays we like passion, not logic, to be the impetus for beginning a love affair. But it will give the history student something to chew on and I think it’s an essential piece of understanding one of the weirder aspects of the Middle Ages.

How Capellanus reshaped romance…
Andreas Capellanus, chaplain at the court of Countess Marie de Champagne, daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine, wrote this treatise on courtly love in the 12th century–ostensibly to educate a friend–and thus set a new standard for lovers. Capellanus’ work may have been intended as a satirical reworking of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, or it might have been influenced by the Arabic views of love in The Dove’s Neck-Ring by Ibn Hazm a Mozarabic writer of the 11th century. Whatever his intent, his work, The Art of Courtly Love, influenced the aristocracy’s ideas of social relationships, and the portrayal of male-female roles in romantic literature, well into the Renaissance. In a series of conversational examples between men and women of various classes together with a list of rules of love, Capellanus draws distinctions between the relationship of marriage and the relations between true lovers. Within the context of courtly love the true lover is required to pay homage to and do the bidding of his ladylove above all else. True love according to Capellanus does not exist between husband and wife, but is a state sought by all outside of the marriage bed. He states, attributing the sentiment to “M., Countess of Champagne”, that “Love cannot acknowledge any rights of his between husband and wife”. This attitude is understandable in a society where marriages were contracted for position and fortune.

In one of the sets of rules for lovers set forth by Capellanus he states that “No one should be deprived of love without the very best of reasons”. This would justify romantic relationships of which women were otherwise deprived. Before modern times, love was rarely a factor in choosing a spouse, and yet it is perhaps the strongest force that drives mankind. Capellanus both acknowledges and rationalizes the power love holds over men and women alike. The path to true love is never easy, and the rules of courtly love would have it that where there is love there, too, is suffering. It is by his great distress that the beloved can see how greatly the lover loves. Although love that suffers chastely and from afar is held in esteem, Capellanus also says that kisses and embraces are “indications that love is to follow” and should not be overdone if the lover is not sincere. This seems to acknowledge the human need for sexual action to follow seduction. Appropriate action with gifts and flattery is described by Capellanus in his dialogs for seducing the beloved. Care must be taken in the choice of gifts, since by the rules of courtly love exchange of valuable objects debases the relationship and lovers may only accept those “little gifts” “useful for the care of the person” or “pleasing to look at” as long as there is no “avarice” involved. This rule led to the carrying by knights of tokens or “favors”–gifts of their ladies–in tournaments throughout the Middle Ages. Seduction has four steps according to Capellanus: first should come the offer of service (or if by a lady the giving of hope to the suitor), followed by the granting of kisses and the embrace–in which a couple may even lie down together nude, having no actual sexual congress, with no blame attached. If the final fourth step is taken, yielding to sexual relations, the lover is committed and can not withdraw from the relationship with honor for any less reason than a seriously dishonorable action on the part of his or her partner. These elements of courtly love appear again and again in literature of the Middle Ages from Chaucer’s “Knight’s Tale” to Malory’s Morte D’Arthur.

Perhaps the most interesting influence in Capellanus’ life is that of Eleanor of Aquitaine, queen of England and wife to King Henry II. Eleanor was already instrumental in the production of early courtly romances, especially the Arthurian tales. Wace dedicated his “Brut” to her, Thomas of Britian wrote his “Tristram” at her instigation and Chretien de Troyes wrote his Lancelot romances from material given him by her daughter Marie. Eleanor’s life reads much like one of these romances. Duchess of Aquitaine, she married Louis, the king of France, at a young age, and produced two daughters Marie and Alix. She met Henry II, six years her junior, before he became king of England and then divorced Louis, on a consanguinarity technicality, to marry him. The rumor was that she and Henry, like Lancelot and Guinevere, met secretly while she was still legally married to Louis. When Henry later tired of her she again took up regency of the Aquitaine for her son Richard, and with her daughter Marie held liberal and literary courts where troubadours sang and courtiers waited upon ladies. Together Eleanor and Marie set a standard of chivalrous manners that changed the behavior of all knighthood. As a pastime these highborn ladies held “courts of love” wherein they tested the behavior of lovers, by the standards set in Capellanus’ treatise, vindicating those they found to be “true lovers” and pronouncing penances for those found lacking. If not for the influence of the strong minded Marie de Champagne and the formidable Eleanor–women who wanted more of love than the usual marriage of convenience–Capellanus might have been relegated to the obscurity of the Church’s proscribed text list, and our standards of romance might be very different today.

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Beowulf A Dual-Language Edition by Howell D Chickering – Save 32% Today!

Why Buy A Beowulf A Dual-Language Edition by Howell D Chickering?
The first major poem in English literature, Beowulf tells the story of the life and death of the legendary hero Beowulf in his three great battles with supernatural monsters. The ideal Anglo-Saxon warrior-aristocrat, Beowulf is an example of the heroic spirit at its finest.

Leading Beowulf scholar Howell D. Chickering, Jr.’s, fresh and lively translation, featuring the Old English on facing pages, allows the reader to encounter Beowulf as poetry. This edition incorporates recent scholarship and provides historical and literary context for the modern reader. It includes the following:

an introduction
a guide to reading aloud
a chart of royal genealogies
notes on the background of the poem
critical commentary
glosses on the eight most famous passages, for the student who wishes to translate from the original
an extensive bibliography

Features

• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices
• Condition: NEW
• ISBN13: 9781400096220
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Over 12 Five Star Customer Reviews On Amazon!

Great introduction to a fascinating classic
This edition was my introduction to Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon culture. I like how the book is organized. Before the poem, Chickering provides a summary, introduction, and reading guide. Then, the poem itself. Finally, history of the poem and a lengthy, helpful commentary. For a “newbie”, this edition helped me to appreciate Beowulf and its culture. I am now reading the commentary, the section “The Poetry of Praise”. I am learning so much. Chickering’s edition gave me the “push” to learn more about Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and Celtic work.

beowulf
I enjoy trying to read Saxon and having his translation to refer to is of great help. I am not sure of some of his translation but it is hard to make sure what you are reading since Saxon was never printed just writen. This a nice printing.

Beowulf, as originally written
This book lets you get a feel of how Beowulf was written in its original language, without having to study Olde English first.

Excellent translation
Although Seamus Heaney’s translation is the one getting all the attention, and is very readable, this one is both readable and is a more word-for-word translation. The accompanying chapters on analysis of the poem are also fascinating.

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The Case of the Gilded Fly Gervase Fen Mysteries by Edmund Crispin – Save 32% Today!

Why Buy A The Case of the Gilded Fly Gervase Fen Mysteries by Edmund Crispin?
Theater companies are notorious hotbeds of intrigue, and few are more intriguing than the company currently in residence at Oxford University. Center-stage is the beautiful, malicious Yseut – a mediocre actress with a stellar talent for destroying men. Rounding out the cast are more than a few of her past and present conquests, and the women who love them. And watching from the wings is Professor Gervase Fen – scholar, wit, and fop extraordinaire – who would infinitely rather solve crimes than expound on English literature. When Yseut is murdered, Fen finally gets his wish. Though clear kin to Lord Peter Wimsey, Fen is a spectacular original – brilliant, eccentric and rude, much taken with himself and his splendid yellow raincoat, and given to quoting Lewis Carroll at inappropriate occasions. Gilded Fly, originally published in 1944, was both Fen’s first outing and the debut of the pseudonymous Crispin (in reality, composer Bruce Montgomery), whom the New York Times once called the heir to “John Dickson Carr . . . and Groucho Marx.”

Over 3 Five Star Customer Reviews On Amazon!

A gilded treasure from the Golden Age of British Mystery
Edmund Crispin (pseudonym for Bruce Montgomery) wrote “The Case of the Gilded Fly” in 1944 while he was still an undergraduate at St. John’s College, Oxford. It features the advent of Gervase Fen, Professor of English Language and Literature, and amateur detective extraordinaire. Another of my favorite characters, the deaf and possibly senile Professor Wilkes also appears for the first time and tells a ghost story right before the first murder occurs. A story within a story. A mystery within a mystery.

Fen solves both the mystery of the Gilded Fly, and the mystery within the ghost story.

Crispin specialized in creating ‘impossible’ murders for his Oxford don to investigate. A murder usually acquires the label ‘impossible’ at the death scene, when someone blurts out, “No one could have gotten past the gate keeper (or into the locked room or through the sky light). This is impossible!”

In “The Case of the Gilded Fly,” we have:

“…Accident practically impossible. And murder, apparently, quite impossible. So the only conclusion is—

“The only conclusion is,” put in the Inspector, “that the thing never happened at all.”

Now Fen is off and running! A whole troupe of actors and actresses had motives for killing their colleague, and all of them (of course) have alibis.

The story begins when playwright Robert Warner mounts his latest experimental drama at the Oxford Repertory Theatre. His previous play bombed in London and he wants to try out “Metromania” in the provinces before opening it on the West End. His current mistress accompanies him to Oxford, and he unwisely gives his former mistress a role in his new play. Both ladies have other admirers. Their admirers have admirers. In fact, it’s hard to keep track of who loves whom without a score card—or in this case, a playbill.

Although its characters sometimes sound frivolous and superficial (and very funny), ‘Gilded Fly’ also concerns itself with the gap between outward, conventional appearances and the inner turmoil that triggered a murder. All of the suspects have valid, psychological reasons for wanting the victim to die, but Fen is skeptical about crimes committed for hate or love:

“I don’t believe in the ‘crime passionel,’ particularly when the passion appears, as in this case, to be chiefly frustration. Money, vengeance, security: there are your plausible motives, and I shall look for one of them.”

If you agree with Fen, then you will be able to eliminate ninety percent of the suspects. If you’re like me, you’ll keep blundering off after red herrings until All is Explained at novel’s end. The author doesn’t cheat—you’ll get all of the clues ahead of the final denouement.

‘Gilded Fly’ is both a tightly constructed mystery and a literate, witty, British comedy of manners.

NOTE: “The Case of the Gilded Fly” was also published under the title, “Obsequies at Oxford.”

I’m glad I decided to read this story again.
It has been a long time since I first read The Case of the Gilded Fly and I’m really glad that I found some time to sit down and enjoy it again after all these years. That is one of the things I love so much about these old, classic mysteries. No matter how much time has passed the story always seems just as exciting as it was the first time around. Modern mystery writers could do themselves a huge favor by immersing themselves in writings of the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s.

Gervase Fen is an Oxford don who specializes in English literature but really wants to work on murder cases. His longtime friend, Sir Richard Freeman, Chief Constable of Oxford, really wanted to study and critique English literature. These two made wonderful counterpoints because they both wanted to concentrate most on the thing the other did for a living. These two characters are wonderfully written by Edmund Crispin. Mainly, for me, because we get to see the best of both professions but given to us from the point of view of the character we would not necessarily expect.

The book opens in a most clever way. All the characters make the railway journey from London to Oxford within days of each other. Each is described during the train trip in wonderful detail concerning their reasons for going to Oxford and the reader is thoroughly acquainted with the characters by the time they all arrive at their destination. Because of the abrasive nature of one character, it is pretty obvious who the murder victim will be but Crispin takes his time leading up to the murder. By the time it happens, you are very much in sympathy with whoever decided to do this person in and Fen’s quandry about whether or not to prove the person guilty is rather easy to understand. Because, Fen does know immediately who the murderer is. I, on the other hand, was not so quick off the mark. I had someone else chosen and resolutely hung on to that person until the bitter end.

Crispin has the Gervase Fen character utilize his vast knowlege of English literature very extensively. Sometimes, it can be somewhat confusing to someone (such as myself) who has only a basic smattering of knowlege of the subject. Still, one of the references did prompt me to do a little research to seek out the quote and read it in its entirety. I must confess that I find myself still scratching my head to try to decide if I think the (first) murder could have taken place in just that way. Wow, what a marksman! and on the spur of the moment too! Also, the motive for the first murder seemed to be rather weak for my taste. I would have liked for a weightier matter to have been the catalyst from which this malevolence sprang.

I love these old mysteries. I think they contain huge doses of character and charm. I really like to set aside uninterrupted time to fully involve myself in the atmosphere of the story. If this sounds like something you enjoy also, then Edmund Crispin could be just the author you are looking for. If you’ve already met Fen, Mrs. Fen and the little Fen consider going back for another time to a world which probably never existed anyplace outside mystery fiction but which I sincerely wish I had inhabited, even if just for a short time.

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Where To Buy Western Wind An Introduction to Poetry by John Frederick Nims At The Lowest Price?

Why Buy A Western Wind An Introduction to Poetry by John Frederick Nims?
WESTERN WIND is an introduction to the elements of craft that make poetry sing, a superior anthology of classic and contemporary poetry, and a guide for students to poetics, writing about poetry, and critical theory. In this text, two well respected poets bring their love of the craft of poetry into a book that teaches as well as inspires. The text also includes exercises, chapter summaries, games, diagrams, illustrations, and 4-color reproductions of great works of art.

Over 11 Five Star Customer Reviews On Amazon!

A splendid source book
This is a wonderful resource for anyone in love with poetry. Packed with great learning about the various closed and open forms, the use of poetic devices, and rich examples drawn from the greatest poetry ever constructed. There is a great deal about the poetic imagination and how some of the acknowledged geniuses have generated their best work. It is a book you will revisit time and time again.

Great job!
I was very pleased with my purchase. The book arrived very quickly and was in even better condition than I had expected! Great job. I would do businees with them again!

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Christopher Marlowe Poet Spy by Park Honan – Save 34% Today!

Why Buy A Christopher Marlowe Poet Spy by Park Honan?
One of the great playwrights of his age, second only to Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe was also a secret agent as well as the central figure in a murder mystery. Now, Park Honan offers the most thoroughly researched and detailed biography of Marlowe to appear in over fifty years.
Honan, the acclaimed biographer of Shakespeare, takes us from Marlowes childhood in Canterbury to his mysterious death in Deptford, shedding much light on this shadowy individual. The book features new information on Marlowes six-and-a-half years at Cambridge, his shocking blasphemy and his street fights, his methods of preparing himself for writing, and his alleged atheism. The book includes new facts about Marlowes adventures on the continent, where he was caught with a counterfeit coin, a hanging offense, but talked his way out of the noose and was returned to England in irons. In addition, there is a more exact account of the circumstances that led to his murder, and a fresh description of his evolving relationship with Shakespeare.
Researched in archives in England, Europe, and the United States, this superb biography paints an unforgettable portrait of one of the most remarkable figures in English literature.
No stone is left unturned…. Mr. Honan offers an almost hour-by-hour account of Marlowes final day, an intriguing theory about the killers motives and an inquiry into the fatal wound worthy of CSI.
–William Grimes, New York Times
A sumptuously detailed picture of Marlowes world…. The rich, complex vision of Elizabethan life that Christopher Marlowe supplies can make his poetic gift for cutting to the passionate core of that life seem even more astonishing.
–Michael Feingold, The New York Times Book Review

Over 6 Five Star Customer Reviews On Amazon!

Involved, heavily researched and meticulously presented true-life story.
Park Honan (Emeritus Professor at the School of English, University of Leeds) presents Christopher Marlowe: Poet & Spy, an in-depth biography of the famous literary figure. Chapters cover Marlowe’s childhood, his street fighting, his alleged atheism, a thorough examination of the circumstances that led to Marlowe’s murder, and much more. A handful of black-and-white illustrations intersperse this involved, heavily researched and meticulously presented true-life story. Also highly recommended are Honan’s previous biographies, most notably the acclaimed “Shakespeare, A Life”.

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