Tristan and Isolde, or On the Conventions and Liberties of Medieval Eros
Tristan and Isolde, or On the Conventions and Liberties of Medieval Eros

Summary/Abstract: Although written by men, medieval literature, whose main invention is associated with courtly love, seems to be the echo of women’s Eros-related Bovarism. Having a status of servitude in society, the medieval woman is praised in literature. She becomes an object of adoration in a convention that follows the principles of feudal behaviour, but offers to the following centuries a fundamental lesson about love – a love which involves distance and platonicism. In this context, my study aims to point to the modernity of the novel Tristan and Isolde, which breaks the known patterns by ambiguating not only the moral medieval Manichaeism, but also the idea of an unconsummated love and by proposing a complex female model, forever different according to the perspective from which she is perceived: the husband’s, the lover’s, God’s.

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