COUTLY LOVE
Courtly Love is the celebration of sexual love between men and women. According to C. S. Lewis (1936), the poetic conventions developed to express it became important elements in the literature of the west during the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The term "courtly love" is vague and complex because the kinds of behavior it is used to specify developed in different ways in many kinds of literature over a long period of time.
The courtly lover is characteristically a knight, though the poet himself is more often than not a man of more humble origin. The troubadour (or poet) is the medieval equivalent of a raveling folksinger who plays other people's songs as well as his own. If he is talented and lucky, and can find a hospitable lord or lady with money, he performs regularly at a castle.

The beloved (the lady) to whom the song is addressed is a stereotype. Physically she is blond and fair, with stylized features and figure that vary little within the tradition.
The affair of the lover and his lady normally begins in April or May, and the stirrings of the lover are associated with the powers of nature in the springtime. Trees come to life, flowers bud, birds (especially nightingales, cuckoos, and larks) begin to sing and seek their mates, the whole earth is warmed by breezes and quickened by rain. The first stages of love fascinated the troubadours. According to A Natural History of Love (1967) the "flicking emotions and trembling moments" the lovers shared together were something wonderful. Sexual intercourse was believed to put an end to such happiness and was not of interest to the lovers. They preferred gazing into each other eyes, having secret codes, having the fear of being discovered and the ongoing pain of being separated. It is assumed that the songs of the troubadours were the direct reflection of the social behavior in the courts of France. The troubadours developed a cult of platonic love and sang an impossible passion for an unattainable noblewoman, proclaiming how lovely she was and how, despite her scorn, they would continue to adore her. A troubadour was expected to think himself well regarded for ten years of devotion by the gift of a single rose.

Troubadour poetry was of many kinds, only of some of which praised "true love"; and of these, some celebrated a love that seems more divine than human. The Allegory of Love (1936) gives a perfect example of the secret love story of Lancelot and Guinevere. The story turns mainly on the queen's captivity in the mysterious land of Gorre, where those that are native can go both in and out but strangers can only go in, and on her rescue from there by Lancelot. Lancelot sets out to find the queen but encounters many tribulations. When Lancelot finds Guinevere, she is very cruel to him and when she forgives him his trials are not yet over. The tournament at the end of the poem between other knights gives Guinevere another opportunity of exercising her position of power. Guinevere, in disguise, sends a message ordering him to do his poorest. Lancelot obediently lets himself be humiliated, mocked, and laughed at by his fellow peers. Lancelot's submission reveals his religious devotion towards Guinevere. He treats Guinevere with saintly, if not divine, honors. This is a perfect example of courtly love.

This is the most interesting topic that I studied because of the fact that the knights’ love was so bıg that they were worshipping the ladies and they don’t see anything other than them. I wonder if there is such a love in today’s world.