Medieval Love Poetry

The quest is the essence of medieval romance. Either the Holy Grail or the jewel of Love could be the goal, but love might also be a snare along the path. This richly illustrated book explores the two distinct but related themes of love and romance, comparing their verbal and visual display in the Middle Ages. A selection of extracts translated from the original texts of poems and chansons are prefaced by brief plot summaries and juxtaposed with contemporaneous images of medieval romances-stories of knightly adventures and quests such as Tristan and Isolde, Gawain and the Green Knight, the Roman del la Rose and La Chatelaine de Vergi. The author's introduction explains the medieval fascination with the quest and its ideas of beauty and chivalry.