ENGB50H3 Lecture Notes - Courtly Love
Document Summary
Lady locked up in a tower that needs to be saved somehow. It"s a fairy tale ideal, which emphasizes courtly love as seen in lines 95-99. Her husband is ridiculously jealous, and so he locks her up. This woman has been understood as malmariee badly married. Makes sense because the description o f her and husband sounds horrible. He"s old wants to have kids and she"s young and pure . Woman gets married to someone of not her station or equal to. She is described as a flower that is withering away. Re-inscribes hierarchy in order to fight against it. Her husband is holding her captive, like feudal system, but she fights against it at the end. When she meets the knight, things get better and she begins to feel a sense of reviving. Adultery is way of fighting against her situation. Adultery wasn"t the norm of that time, doesn"t mesh up with things in that society.