Throughout the Commedia, love definitely plays an important role in the psychological path to get Dante through hell. The strongest way love is represented in the work is between Dante and Beatrice. Although Beatrice is not there physically for the Commedia, she really plays a great role spiritually as she is constantly praying for Virgil and Dante to make it through hell. Dante’s love for Beatrice is definitely real throughout the poem, and she definitely is the spiritual angel that helped inspire him to make it through hell. Without her great inspiration throughout the great work, who knows if Dante would have made it through hell.

How do any of the following poets’ views on love compare? In both Petrarch’s and Daniel’s poems, it seems as if they are both writing about someone who is unattainable. It is as if they are looking on from a distance. Petrarch is writing about this love that he missed while Daniels is writing about a love that he is afraid to miss. Daniels writes that he would turn down Rome, and the Pope for this women. They both write quite passionately about love. Also in both of their poems they write about how they are in love with a golden haired women. Petrarch writes in poem 90: “She let her gold hair scatter in the breeze.” And Daniels wrote “When I look at her golden hair…” Hair, as we discussed in class, comes up a lot in these courtly love poems, and is a major attraction to these poets.

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.

Michel de Montaigne writes in a candid and unaffected style. He is always ready to belittle or humiliate himself, as shown in “Letter to Readers,” so that readers get the impression of his humility and modesty. In “Of Cannibals,” he describes the Brazilian cannibals in amiable and friendly terms. He does this to create contrast to Europeans’ misconceptions and biased judgments about other cultures. He goes on to convey their serene lifestyle, how they live in harmony with nature. Montaigne is a remarkable writer in that his seemingly simple insights provoke deep resonance within our mind about our own prejudices.

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.

Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptameron was definitely influenced by courtly love – especially in Story 10, in which the supposedly virtuous and heroic Amador complies with the “rules” of courtly love, then becomes frustrated and surrenders to his desires. Marguerite de Navarre presents courtly love in a more cynical way, perhaps offering her opinion that to always be waiting for someone and loving them from afar isn’t realistic, though up to a certain point it could be possible. It isn’t realistic because of two things: first, from a biological perspective, love is a sort of instinctive desire that makes people reproduce. Nature demands that our species continues, so it’s silly to expect that two people would be able to hold out and be “virtuous” forever. People have needs. Second, a person needs to be psychologically close with another person, and they can’t fully share themselves with someone else if they’re hardly ever together. Marguerite de Navarre really drives her point home by writing the story so that Florida and Amador were so close to successfully carrying out the courtly love ritual – if only Amador could have waited.

The poems by Petrarch and Labe all spoke about the anguish that goes hand in hand with love, either unrequited or not.  Petrarch was in love with this fair maiden and he longed to be with her. ‘ I who had the lure of love in my breast, what wonder if I suddenly caught fire?’ He felt that he wore his heart on his sleeve visible to the fair maiden but she pitied him. One can only assume that she did not feel the same way. Labe anxiously awaited the return of her love. ‘ At any rate, your roving ways are sure,To make me count the weeks we’ve been apart, and open gaping wounds within my heart, this ailing heart which you alone can cure.’ These poems are so melodramatic and it’s difficult to envision people in this current century being that way when it comes to love. We are so programmed to hide our emotions that this all consuming love for another human being seems so elusive. It seems that with great love comes great sorrow, something that I would personally prefer to avoid.

How do any of the following poets’ views on love compare? It may also be worth analyzing and/or comparing some of these poets literary devices (mostly likely images and/or metaphors).

Both Petrarch and Shakespeare are influenced by courtly love, a love that is built on a person’s suffering to attain a great relationship. In Petrarch’s 90^th poem, he describes how he suffers endlessly for his love for this woman as he uses vivid images. He believes the hardships or ascetic suffering he endures brings him higher to the truth because one needs to work hard for love. Petrarch is lured by this woman’s beauty as he describes her “gold hair” that “scatters in the breeze,” eyes that emit “wavering light, beyond measure,” a voice that is more than human, and her “moving…of angelic form.” He ends this poem by saying he has been hit by cupid’s arrow, as he will forever be scarred and tormented by his love.

Petrarch’s idea of courtly love influences Shakespeare, but Shakespeare is a bit more cynical and dark in his views in certain poems. However, Sonnet 116 is the exception that fits in with petrarchism as it celebrates marriage as an unbreakable commitment built on values and morals. Love is a force that endures suffering and pain in order to become stronger and for the people involved to gain knowledge. Love never dies even when someone tries to be destructive as it is “not a love/ Which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove:/ O no! it is an ever-fixed mark.” Shakespeare also uses a star that guides boats as a metaphor that guides love. Lastly, he concludes by saying that he knows he is right in his views but in the case that he is wrong and someone can prove it, he has never written, meaning he’ll take back what he said and no man has truly loved.

Virgil’s Commedia has a strong religious connotation in the work.  The concept of heaven, hell and purgatory would not be appealing to someone of secular or irreligious identity.  Although that may be the case, the work has several appealing aspects to those who fall into the secular category.  Heaven, hell and purgatory may be applied to everyday life and present as a metaphor to many things happening in our life.  For example, purgatory may represent our loss in life, pertaining not to death but rather to loss of self in the world or ones life.  Hell may represent all the bad that a person may have done and wants to which may lead to darkness in the their life.  Heaven of course may represent clean intentions and the good a person may bring to others and him or herself.  The work as well can teach a bout life in general.  Virgil illustrates stories of those who are in each zone and it can be appealing to the readers to see what kind of actions people commit that may cause consequences in their life.  Not religious consequence, but a problem that they may encounter.  Virgil’s work as well can serve as a time machine to study what was viewed as wrong and right in his time compared to what we view in society now.  The work teaches about life overral making the work be appreciated by anyone of any belief.

The main theme of this work is love. Human love and profane love, love in all its forms. In this work as the story is read you can see the ideology of love according to Marguerita through attitudes and words of men and women, where a picture of the conception of love and marriage in the sixteenth century is built is reflected. Do not forget that in the Middle Ages, love in literature was the courtly love, the troubadour sang the female coquetry, beauty and female discretion were values ​​that were above of the  intellectual values.

In the sixteenth century however , the woman begins to influence society. Undoubtedly, one of the pillars of the female role is humanistic education. Through the culture and its privileged social position Marguerita of Navarre realizes that the world is changing, but the woman is still too obfuscated by man. We see in her work a mosaic structure, where every word, every gesture of the characters help to  shape a defense of honest, believer and educated woman.

The characters are divided into two groups: female and male. Although equalize in number, they do not have the same importance. The male side led by Hircan is characterized by misogyny  which means discrimination against women  and machismo (except Daugocin and Geburon).

However, it is on the female side where the spiritual leader of the group is, Oisille  and the person  with greater intellectual development; Parliament. Thus, Margarita gets elevate the role of women in the society of his time, banishing values like ​​frivolity and pride. So like this, faithful to God and to her husband and also intelligent and cultivated woman, represented by Parlamente, is the big winner in the debates.  Human love for Margarita must be between individuals of the same social class and within marriage, So much so Parlamente respect her husband when dissimulating the flirtation of her admirers.