Synopses & Reviews
Andersen-Wyman's book undoes most scholarly uses and understandings of De amore by Andreas Capellanus. By offering a reading promoted by the text itself, Andersen-Wyman shows how Andreas undermines the narrative foundations of sacred and secular institutions and renders their power absurd. Her book offers the best explanation yet for why Andreas's was one of only two books condemned by Bishop Tempier in 1276: the tools Andreas offers his readers, as well as what Andreas suggests about his own desire and what should be the place of women in society, could make his book dangerous in almost any era.
Review
"This fascinating rereading of the
De amore of Andreas Capellanus within a twelfth-century context uncovers his subversive approach to class, gender (specifically, heterosexuality), religion, and the individual. In her deft, clever examination, Andersen-Wyman sees what other readers have not, thereby explaining the reason for the book's condemnation by Bishop Tempier. Only superficially about the seduction of women,
De amore reveals Andreas's view of the subjectivity and relativity of argument and evidence and his general condemnation of judgment. By raising female voices in dialogue, Andreas exonerates women and counters oppressive institutions. An important new book."--Jane Chance, Rice University
"In her study of this perennially baffling text, Andersen-Wyman does far more than clear up its difficulties and make lucid its surprising project. By reorienting the book's archive toward contemporary ecclesiastical Latin discourses on love, desire, friendship and sexuality, she expands our view well beyond he the arena of vernacular courtly literature that has dominated readings of Andreas, and gives us the picture of a period passionately engaged in debating these issues with the human seriousness - the joy, pain and exaltation - they deserve. Driven by deep learning and critical acumen in its overall argument, the book is ornamented by a flashing wit, often of bracing tartness, in its particular observations. Andreas Capellanus on Love is worthy of its subject: powerful, funny and smart. It is the best book in medieval studies that I have read in a long time."--H. Marshall Leicester, Jr., University of California, Santa Cruz
"Finally, here is a most intelligent and thoughtful, truly sensitive and best informed study on the highly complex, mysteriously contradictory treatise by Andreas Capellanus, De amore. Andersen -Wyman's book cuts through much of traditional scholarship on this text and offers an intriguing, absolutely convincing analysis, suggesting that Andreas's text served multiple purposes, mostly of relevance for medieval intellectuals, but not really for courtly lovers, a convenient screen to hide the true intentions. De amore suddenly emerges as a thoroughly satirical text predicated on numerous discourses aiming for epistemological enlightenment and drawing on intensive intertextual connections. In fact, Andreas simply played with misogynous rhetoric and certainly embraced homosexuality in his relationship with Walter. Andersen-Wyman's investigation will be the hallmark of future research on De amore."--Albrecht Classen, University of Arizona, Tucson
Synopsis
Andreas Capellanus on Love? constitutes a new reading of the text the world has come to call
De amore. Challenging the way the
De amore of Andreas Capellanus has been taught, used, and interpreted as an ancillary text since Gaston Paris dubbed it the "code book of courtly love" in 1883, Andersen-Wyman here seeks to illustrate the text's own intrinsic significance. Using Andreas's text primarily to explain other texts, as has been scholarly practice, misleads us about them, Andersen-Wyman contends, about
De amore and about what is possible in the late twelfth century.
Synopsis
A new look at Andreas Capellanus's De amore.
Synopsis
A new look at Andreas Capellanus's De amore.
About the Author
Kathleen Andersen-Wyman received her B.A., with high honors in English, from Oberlin College and completed her M.A. and PhD in Literature at the University of California at Santa Cruz. All three degrees focused on medieval literature and culture. She has taught at universities in California, Tennessee, Idaho and Texas. She currently resides with her family on the Texas Gulf Coast, where she teaches Literature, Honors English, Art Appreciation and Humanities at Brazosport College. She also directs the college art gallery, and diversifies her scholarly interests, when there is time, by painting and writing fiction.
Table of Contents
Fish or Fowl (or Is There a Genre in This Text?) * Repetition in Andreas's Text * On Clerical Intertexts and the Subversion of Seduction * Andreas and Walter * Andreas on Women