Courtly Love Is Not Realistic

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.

One thought on “Courtly Love Is Not Realistic

  1. It is true that sometimes we say that we can wait when we love someone. But until when are we able to wait for our love. Love is something that needs to be nourished every single day that we are breathing.

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