ABOUT THIS BOOK
In the twelfth century, the Catholic Church attempted a thoroughgoing reform of marriage and sexual behavior aimed at eradicating sexual desire from Christian lives. Seeking a refuge from the very serious condemnations of the Church and relying on a courtly culture that was already preoccupied with honor and secrecy, European poets, romance writers, and lovers devised a vision of love as something quite different from desire. Romantic love was thus born as a movement of covert resistance.
In The Making of Romantic Love: Longing and Sexuality in Europe, South Asia, and Japan, William M. Reddy illuminates the birth of a cultural movement that managed to regulate selfish desire and render it innocent—or innocent enough. Reddy strikes out from this historical moment on an international exploration of love, contrasting the medieval development of romantic love in Europe with contemporaneous eastern traditions in Bengal and Orissa, and in Heian Japan from 900-1200 CE, where one finds no trace of an opposition between love and desire. In this comparative framework, Reddy tells an appealing tale about the rise and fall of various practices of longing, underscoring the uniqueness of the European concept of sexual desire.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction - William M. Reddy
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226706283.003.0001
[romantic love, courtly love, Bengal and Orissa, Heian Japan, sexual desire, sexuality]
This introductory chapter discusses the main themes covered in this book, which explores the historical origins of the Western conception of romantic love. It shows that this very specific, Western conception of romantic love was first formulated in the twelfth century. The making of “courtly love,” the medieval version of romantic love, in twelfth-century Europe is compared to the very different practices of sexual partnerships in two other places: in regional kingdoms of Bengal and Orissa in the ninth through twelfth centuries; and among the imperial aristocracy of Heian Japan in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The chapter also discusses the “longing for association” as a type of emotion; the current science of sexual desire; the anthropology of romantic love; how romantic love appears to lock men and women into very rigid roles; and romantic love and the history of sexuality. (pages 1 - 38)
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I. The Emergence of Courtly Love in Europe
Aristocratic Speech, the Gregorian Reform, and the First Troubadour - William M. Reddy
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226706283.003.0002
[courtly love, twelfth century, social life, aristocratic speech, kinship, gender identities, sexual relationships, Gregorian Reform]
This chapter presents evidence in support of a novel explanation of the origins of courtly love. It discusses three features of twelfth-century social life that combined to shape the courtly love ideal: a specific form of aristocratic speech; a related approach to kinship reckoning, gender identities, and “sexual” relationships; and the impact of the Gregorian Reform. (pages 40 - 104)
This chapter is available at:
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Trobairitz and Troubadours and the Shadow Religion - William M. Reddy
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226706283.003.0003
[courtly love, trobairitz, troubadours, William IX, canso, Occitan society, aristocratic speech, twelfth century]
This chapter examines the original cultural context of the songs of the trobairitz and troubadours, who first popularized the courtly love ideal. It shows that “courtly love,” as developed by William IX and his imitators, was the only tradition that justified love by its sublime, heroic contrast with desire-as-appetite. The kind of love that William IX wrote about and the genre of song he employed in praising the beloved—usually referred to as a canso—enjoyed a growing popularity, first in southern France, spreading from there to Iberia, Italy, and most of western and central Europe. Twelfth-century Occitan society and the canso as aristocratic speech are discussed. (pages 105 - 167)
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Narratives of True Love and Twelfth-Century Common Sense - William M. Reddy
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226706283.003.0004
[courtly love, verse narratives, Arthurian romances, Chrétien, Lancelot, aristocratic speech, Lais, Marie de France, fabliaux]
This chapter considers the incorporation of the courtly love ideal into the verse narratives of some Arthurian romances. It also examines the question of how widely the principles of courtly love were actually put into practice in the twelfth century. The discussions cover the source material of Arthurian romance; a reading of Chrétien's “Lancelot”; aristocratic speech in the Tristan myth; the Lais of Marie de France; more real-life romances of the late twelfth century; and courtly love conventions' satirical treatment in fabliaux. (pages 168 - 220)
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II. Points of Comparison
The Bhakti Troubadour: Vaishnavism in Twelfth-Century Bengal and Orissa - William M. Reddy
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226706283.003.0005
[Hindus, sexuality, bhava, rasa, Purushottama temple]
This chapter examines “Hindu” treatments of sexuality. It focuses on the building of the temple of Purushottama in Puri starting around 1137 and the origins and character of its rituals. It shows that for Bengal and Orissa, the most important distinction was not between the flesh and the spirit, as it was for twelfth-century Christian moralists, nor between desire-as-appetite and fin'amors, as it was for twelfth-century trobairitz and troubadours. The most important distinction, both in the temple and in the palace, was between a this-worldly realm of coarse, particular emotions, sometimes called bhava, and the universal realm of refined moods called rasa. (pages 222 - 289)
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Elegance and Compassion in Heian Japan - William M. Reddy
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226706283.003.0006
[sexual partnerships, love, spiritual world, kinship, marriage, Heian literature, elite, love affairs, Genji]
This chapter examines the understanding of sexual partnerships and the practice of love in Heian Japan (794–1185). For aristocrats of the Heian period, sexual partnerships, insofar as these were this-worldly endeavors, participated in the inevitable frustration of all this-worldly desires. However, there was also a tendency to see sexual partnerships, like other social roles, as a matter of interest to the gods. Gods and spirits might intervene to advance a partnership they favored. The discussions include the Heian spiritual world; kinship and marriage among the governing elite; Heian literature; Heian subjectivity; the celestial splendors of the Heian elite; spiritually meaningful love affairs; and the sublime loves of Genji. (pages 290 - 345)
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Conclusion - William M. Reddy
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226706283.003.0007
[Europe, Bengal and Orissa, Heian Japan, human self-body, language, longing for association]
This chapter discusses how the three case studies—of twelfth-century Europe, of twelfth-century Bengal and Orissa, and of tenth- and eleventh-century Heian Japan—exhibit such great contrasts that, even across local variation, conflict, and change, stable differences are evident in understandings about the structure of the world and of the place of the human self-body within it; and the uses of language in such a world. In view of these very substantial contrasts, it is all the more remarkable that striking similarities were found among all three cases in the characteristics of longing for association. Each of these points are taken up in turn. (pages 346 - 392)
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Appendix: Transliterated South Asian Words
Bibliography
Index
