In my opinion, Courtly Love is an over-dramatized sense of loving a person. To present day society, this concept may seem imaginative or something that is hidden deep in our thoughts, never to be shared publicly as these writers did. Literature handles Courtly Love with a high level of extravagance which is evident in Petrarch’s work. In Poem 3, he is captivated by this woman’s “lovely eyes” and he was not “on guard against love’s blows.” This love that he felt left his heart feeling “nourished” and he alluded to Cupid shooting him with love’s arrow. It is all seems imaginative and unrealistic but this is the type of love that we dream of having with hopes that the feelings are reciprocated. To us, these may seem like the lyrics to a love song we may hear on the radio today. Many of these Courtly Love concepts transpired glamorized interpretations of love in today’s society. It sets expectations for what love is supposed to be like and when these expectations are not met, the situation takes a turn.

In my opinion, Sappho uses descriptive language effectively to create emotions and images. In one of her pieces, she states that her “tongue is frozen in silence” and that “trembling seizes my body.” The reader can easily assume from this vividly described scene that the speaker is feeling anxiety, just through the description of actions. She did not have to explicitly state that she was anxious or feeling shattered about her lover speaking to a man, the audience could automatically draw the conclusion. This indicates her successful use of imagery within her piece. On a side-note, I noticed that all of the pieces we read this week use a lot of figurative elements when speaking about love, almost as if it is too “unreal” or too much of a difficult concept to grasp, which is why it can only be discussed figuratively.

There is a conflict within Aeneas. His mind is constantly feuding with his duties and obligations versus what he really longs to do. Aeneas sacrifices his own happiness and well-being at the expense of his obligations. For instance, he sacrificed Dido for what he felt was more important, his work. He shows dedication and commitment in his mission to seek refuge in Italy. However, he feels pain for all that he has sacrificed, for example, his love life, to complete his mission.