The Romance of the Rose

Courtly love is a literary genre and tradition established in medieval Europe that focuses on secretive relationships between unmarried young men and women in high social positions. Most courtly love tales are from the perspective of the man, often a knight, who falls in love with a noblewoman from a distance.

Since the lady is typically married or otherwise inaccessible to him, the young man pines after her until he manages to win her love and, to some extent, consummate their relationship. The stages of courtly love, then, are loosely as follows: The man sees the lady, worships her, declares his devotion, is rejected, pines and nearly dies, woos her again, earns her love through various actions, consummates the relationship, and then continues it in secret. In some stories, like Tristan and Iseult, the lovers are caught and meet tragic ends for their adultery; others portray the lovers as platonic or chaste and end happily.

Scholars debate how literally courtly love tales are intended to be read. Since Christian medieval Europe typically condemned extramarital sex, many argue that the passionate relationships between lovers were largely metaphorical. Their mutual suffering came from their suppressed erotic feelings. Others argue that their relationships were platonic, with erotic language used as a metaphor for emotional intimacy. Regardless of how literally we interpret the tradition, courtly love had an impact on gender roles and behavior in the medieval period. Most tales elevated women to an almost heavenly role; they were an important civilizing factor to young knights, who aimed to live nobly to win their lover’s attention.

The Romance of the Rose’s critical view of women is a critique of the tradition’s elevated view of women. Courtly love stories gave women some agency by allowing them to choose their noble “lovers” outside of arranged marriages. It is highly unlikely, however, that these tropes and actions were replicated in real life, and if they were, they would likely not be praised to the extent they are in fiction.