Eros and Noesis: A Cognitive Approach to the Courtly Love Literature of Medieval France by Don A. Monson (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Eros and Noesis: A Cognitive Approach to the Courtly Love Literature of Medieval France by Don A. Monson Miao Li Monson, Don A. Eros and Noesis: A Cognitive Approach to the Courtly Love Literature of Medieval France. Brill, 2022. ISBN 978-90-04-50448-6. Pp. 369. As the first study to apply modern cognitive research to medieval love literature, Monson’s monograph reflects the author’s pioneering efforts in this field. Courtly poetry, since its appearance in the twelfth century, has been a subject of fascination for literary scholars and the public. Andreas Capellanus attempted to codify the courtly themes in De amore and modern scholars Gaston Paris and C.S. Lewis proposed the theory of “courtly love,” widely accepted during the first half of the twentieth century. However, later scholars such as D. W. Robertson, Jr. challenged this paradigm by stating that “courtly love” was an impediment to the study of medieval texts. Feminist scholars even denounced “courtly love” as a product of patriarchy. When “courtly love” was deflated, cognitive science gradually found its way into literary studies, despite its minimal impact on medieval literature. Monson’s work, extending the analysis undertaken in his earlier articles by applying some of the results of cognitive research to the corpus of medieval love literature, suggests that cognitive theory can fill the theoretical void left by the disrepute regarding “courtly love.” Our understanding of human sexual psychology helps to determine the relative contributions of biological universality and the cultural specificity to medieval poetic love, the principal theme of this literature. Cognitive science clarifies the modes of expression for various courtly ideas and emotions and proposes a new ordering of courtly themes and poetic genres in terms of their relationship to the mechanisms of reciprocal desire and consummation. Through amplification of courtly paradigms, it facilitates our understanding of the evolution of medieval courtly genres, which, according to Monson, is a fluid and flexible system developed in accordance with human cognitive processes. Guided by a cognitive taxonomy based on three courtly “hyper-genres” (lyric, narrative, and didactic) constituting basic pragmatic situations for the discussion of love, Monson proposes an in-depth look at common courtly themes appearing in the corpus of Old Occitan, Old French, and medieval Latin literature of “courtly love” of the twelfth- and thirteenth-century France. He eloquently demonstrates that the logical relationships between these hyper-genres correspond to their chronological development in medieval French literature and the development of human cognitive processes. The lyric mode represents an initial cognitive operation of self-awareness leading to the expression of love, the narrative mode provides a referential function of explaining past events, and the didactic mode guides future behavior. The inclusion of anti-courtly parody and satire completes the full range of courtly literature. An innovative retracing of the evolution of the courtly literature themes, the hyper-genres (lyric, narrative, didactic) and subgenres in the perspective of human cognitive processes, this work will inspire future scholars to realize the considerable potential that the [End Page 208] cognitive approach holds. It will capture the interest of a wide audience, including but not limited to literary and social sciences scholars, readers interested in medieval love poetry, and anyone who seeks to better understand the fundamental human experience of love. [End Page 209] Miao Li University of Calgary (AB), Canada Copyright © 2023 American Association of Teachers of French