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If love it is: Chaucer, Aquinas and Love′s Fidelity
Author(s) -
Sherwin Michael S.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
new blackfriars
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1741-2005
pISSN - 0028-4289
DOI - 10.1111/nbfr.12019
Subject(s) - citation , fidelity , art , computer science , library science , telecommunications
The above text is the first song to love in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde.1 It is sung by the tragic hero, the Trojan warrior Troilus. After long mocking love and the silliness of lovers, Troilus has himself succumbed to its power by falling deeply in love with the noble Criseyde. The experience is so new and disorienting that Troilus seeks to understand its nature: “If Love it is, what sort of thing is he?” What is this riot of emotion, this sweet agony and painful joy that sends us now one way, now another? Is love