Amour au miroir

The myth of love inherent in fin'amor, invented by the troubadours at the end of the 11th century, remains alive in the French medieval courtly romance. Represented as variations of love in the mirror of Narcissus, it becomes the fertile vein of a movement which the author calls the lyric romance. This rivals the "Breton" courtly romance and its priestly version by focusing on the adventure of love. It aims to go beyond the lyric vision of love, inventing a continuation to it and resolving its internal contradictions. The courtly romance undertakes thereby to cure the courtly neurosis. Its fictions raise an aesthetical and spiritual question: if it remains fanciful, is love possible without resorting to the magical? The book proposes to reveal the identity and the stakes of the courtly romance from the 12th to the 14th century. The resemblance of courtly love romance to a German short-story of the early 20th century shows the perennial nature of this subject in western literature.