The Allegory of Love
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Written in 1936 by C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love is an exploration of the Medieval conventions of courtly love.
The work remains as a highly respected introduction to this chivalric convention, established as a literary convention within Le Roman de la Rose, a 1237 work by Guillaume de Lorris, translated into the vernacular by Chaucer in 1262. Chaucer's subsequent works on the theme may be seen within The Canterbury Tales.
Lewis engages the idea of Courtly Love and Italian sonnet sequences such as Ariosto and Petrarchan poetry within the Medieval and Renaissance traditions. Among the works he explores aside from the above forementioned, are Gower's Confessio Amantis, Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, and Spenser's The Faerie Queene.
