The courtly ancestry of Amadis de Gaula

171 Pages·1977·6.86 MB·English

by  H. Bruce Raymond

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77-29,354
RAYMOND, H. Bruce, 1939-
THE COURTLY ANCESTRY OF AMADIS
DE GAULA.
The University of Arizona, Ph.D., 1977
Literature, medieval
Xerox University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48io6
@ 1977
H. BRUCE RAYMOND
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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THE COURTLY ANCESTRY OF AMADIS DE GAULA
by
H. Bruce Raymond
A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the
DEPARTMENT OF ROMANCE LANGUAGES
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
WITH A MAJOR IN SPANISH
In the Graduate College
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
19 7 7
Copyright 1977 H. Bruce Raymond
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THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
GRADUATE COLLEGE
I hereby recommend that this dissertation prepared under my
direction by H. Bruce Raymond____________________________________
entitled _THE COURTLY ANCESTRY OF AMADIS DE. GAULA________________
be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement of the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy________________________________
Dissertation Director
After inspection of the final copy of the dissertation, the
following members of the Final Examination Committee concur in
its approval and^recommend its acceptance:*
-?///.V7 7
7-/r- y;
*i ■ •^*1
This approval and acceptance is contingent on the candidate's
adequate performance and defense of this dissertation at the
final oral examination. The inclusion of this sheet bound into
the library copy of the dissertation is’evidence of satisfactory
performance at the final examination.
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STATEMENT BY AUTHOR
This dissertation has been submitted in partial
fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The
University of Arizona and is deposited in the University
Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of
the Library.
Brief quotations from this dissertation are
allowable without special permission, provided that
accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for
permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of
this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the
copyright holder.
SIGNED:
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my deepest thanks to my
director H. Reynolds Stone who very patiently and kindly
has guided me through this dissertation. His wife Susan
and their children have also been especially important
as friends and morale builders.
Robert Anderson, too, receives my very special
thanks for his continued encouragement and his unique
approach to certain problems related to completion.
I am also greatly indebted to Timothy Brown for
his diligence as a reader and for his generous interest
in my successful termination; and to my other committee
members, Dana Nelson and Frank Chambers, whose valuable
suggestions have added coherence and readability to this
dissertation.
Finally, I am deeply thankful to my wife Alicia and
to my parents and three sisters for their constant and
loving support; and to Terry Clark for her friendly advice,
organizational skills, and superb completion under pressure
of a difficult typing job.
iii
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ABSTRACT . vi
CHAPTER
I. INTRODUCTION.. , . . , ........................ 1
II. AN OVERVIEW OF AMATORY LITERATURE............ 9
Classical Antecedents to Fin'amors
and the Dispute Over "Ovid
Misunderstood" .................... ... 9
The Troubadours and the "Newness" of
their Conception........................ 12
Chretien's Lancelot and the Initial
Definition of Amour Courtois ........... 15
Chretien's Amour Courtois in the Light
of Moralizing Theories ................. 18
A Digest of the Philosophical and
Theological Background of
Andreas and the Troubadours ...... 23
Andreas Capellanus and the De Amore ... 26
Chivalry, Fin'amors, and the Roman de
la Rose . . . ........................ 32
III. COURTLY DEFINITIONS AND THEORIES: A
CONCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT OF COURTLY
TRADITION..................... , 36
The Troubadour "System" ........... 36
Critical Vagueness in the Use of the
Term Courtly Love . . . . . . . . . . . 36
A Critical Reappraisal of Early
Definitions . . . . . . . . ........... 38
The Problem of the Definition of
Courtly Love ..... 41
Social and Moral Aspects of Courtoisie . . 44
Cortezia and Fin'amors ............. 52
Fin'amors and Amour Courtois . . . . . . . 58
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TABLE OF CONTENTS— Continued
Page
IV. CHIVALRY AND THE COURTLY TRADITION........... 62
The Emergence of Chivalry in Feudal
Society................................. 62
The Ideals of Early Chivalry . . . . . . . 65
Contact Between Christian and
Chivalric Ideals: The Christianiza-
tion of the Feudal Knight............. 68
The Decline of Chivalric Idealism
During the Crusades.................... 72
Evolutionary Contacts Between
Chivalry and Fin1 amors: The
Emergence of a "Courtly" Ideal of
Chivalry................................. 79
R§sum§ of the Evolution: From
Chivalry to Courtly Love and from
Epic to Romance . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
V. THE COURTLY AND CHIVALRIC ELEMENTS OF
AMADIS DE GAULA AND THEIR CHRISTIANIZATION . 89
Fin*amors in Amadis de Gaula........... . 89
The Religion of Love ........... 92
Humility in the Service of Love ... 95
The Rigors of Love.................... 100
Pleasure and Ennoblement in the
Suffering of Love, and Its
Final Reward .. . . . . 105
Courtly-Chivalric Elements in the
Amadis ..........., ............... 113
The Christian Aspects of Courtly
Chivalry in Amadis de Gaula . . . . . . 130
VI. CONCLUSION..................................... 148
REFERENCES.......................... 154
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ABSTRACT
Drawing on the considerable amatory content of
antique literature a mysterious group of poets known as the
troubadours conceived in eleventh- and twelfth-century
Languedoc an idealized vision of love which they called
finTamors. ’ This new conception of love appeared in a
society which conformed politically to feudalism in its
most highly developed form, and socially to the ideal of
chivalry. And while this society responded increasingly to
the teachings of Christianity, rejection of its non-
Christian origins surfaced in a general ambivalence in the
treatment of sacred and profane material.
The literary and social phenomenon which we study
under the denomination of "courtly tradition" has resulted
from the combination and development of elements from
feudal chivalry, fin1amors and Christian doctrine:
initially, troubadour poetry was inspired by chivalric
models and, repeatedly thereafter by its reflection in
chivalric literature. By the same token, chivalry was
slowly stimulated and modified by its troubadouresque
image. As fin'amors interacted with chivalry in social
and moral forms which ranged from cortezia in the South to
courtoisie in the North, the two ideals, under the constant
influence of the Church, gradually merged into courtly
vi
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chivalry— the term we find most appropriate for expressing
a Christianized vernacular literature based on Southern
amatory ideals and set in a chivalric framework.
Courtly chivalry first appears in the Northern
roman courtois, especially as it is developed by Chr§tien
de Troyes, who attempts to reconcile fin,amors with
Christian matrimony. The spirit of the trouveres,
especially the Christianizing tendencies of Chretien, is
best represented by the late thirteenth-century Roman de
la Rose wherein we find the clearly developed concept of
courtship as a prelude to marriage, an idea which will be
emphasized by the revisers of Amadis de Gaula.
Due to its extended period of composition (up to
two hundred years), the Amadis constitutes an excellent
example of the development of courtly tradition, that is,
the manner in which the ideals of chivalry and fin1amors
were combined and Christianized in the formation of
courtly chivalry. Analysis of Amadis de Gaula leads us
to two main conclusions: (1) based on abundant examples
of knightly and troubadour concepts the work must be
considered to be, in many ways, an amalgamation of the
ideologies of chivalry and fin'amors; and (2) the several
revisions of primitive versions of the Amadis (which
probably revealed an early Christian conscience),
especially the one by Rodriguez de Montalvo, became
increasingly moralistic and concerned with the aims of
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