The idea behind courtly love is centered around the idea of romance. It is not about the physical aspect of love in a relationship and neither is it about the sexual affection behind love. Instead, courtly love can be seen more of as a one-sided affection that usually goes unsuccessful. It seems strange when one thinks about it but the idea behind courtly love is centered around the idea that a man gets inspired to do creative things with every romantic step that he takes in order to win his lady’s affection. In the Canzoniere love poems written by Petrarch, Petrarch portrays courtly love as something that is greatly influenced through many scenarios discussed in the poems. The main way this idea is portrayed through Petrarch’s poems is through his beloved Laura who he has shown as a golden-haired beauty.  The description of Laura closely matches the way women were portrayed in courtly love. However, it is not just her physical description that matches the courtly love style, but her response to his poetry also corresponds to courtly love. Laura’s response to Petrarch’s poetry was cold and showed less affection than Petrarch showed. This is connected to courtly love since another factor of courtly love is to keep your love a secret and keep it hidden. The fact that Laura’s true identity was kept a secret through the poems leads into this factor of courtly love. Petrarch does such a good job at keeping her identity a secret that often scholars have pondered on the question if Laura even existed. This factor strongly contributes to how Petrarch’s poems display a significant understanding of courtly love. Overall, the general idea of courtly love is very genuine and pure. Courtly love requires one to make a lot of effort and have a lot of confidence in order to win a girl’s heart. It is not just an ordinary type of love where two people would fall in love and there would be no test of the strength of love. Courtly love is the type of love that inspires and strives you to get to know and discover each other truly.

•  “Ladder of Love”

The “Ladder of Love” has a lot of different aspects that come together and define what love basically is. The first step is that a person loves their body and loves everyone’s bodies. They need to find bodies beautiful, all types of bodies. After they have found the physical beauty, the person must learn to find the beauty of the souls that are within the bodies. This allows for a love that’s deep that the physical being. This leads to the love of certain types of thinking and certain types of mentality, since when you fall in love with a soul you are finding beauty in their unique thinking. This brings love to its final step of knowledge or which is also known as beliefs. Furthermore, in today’s time people are beginning to love their thick bodies because they are loving their bodies and finding themselves to be beautiful on the inside regardless of what society labels them as. By reading Symposium by Plato, Diotima’s explanation of “Ladders of Love” to Socrates will enable the reader to see true beauty in everyone and everything in its true initial form.

In the Aeneid, Gods play a dynamic role in determining the fate of mortals. They have the most power and controls over the others and they are inimitable. Making sacrifices and prayers to the Gods determine if they are going to use their power and force to either help you or go against you in every possible way. Jupiter is the king of the gods, who has the most power to rule other gods and has a supreme control. While Jupiter encourages destiny, the other gods cannot act against his will. Throughout this epic, the godly influence can be seen as more of help than obstruction to Aeneas. Even though, Aeneas made sacrifices and prays to Juno, she tries to destroy Aeneas and makes it difficult for Aeneas to perform his duty. Despite of Juno creating barriers for Aeneas to fulfill his mission, Jupiter and other gods helps him to overcome every barrier and helps him to complete his mission. Furthermore, Aeneas’s mother Venus who is a goddess helps him during his difficult times. Venus shows that Aeneas has all the support and help from the gods and that will assure his protection from all the gods.