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Work #1034 · Mature

The Allegory of Love

C. S. Lewis
1936 (Oxford UP); Hawthornden Prize 1936 · English
Literary-historical scholarship · Twentieth-century English medieval-Renaissance literary scholarship

Courtly love, allegorical poetry, the medieval European literary tradition — Lewis's scholarly masterpiece on the literary form that organised European love poetry from the troubadours to Spenser

Attribute Fingerprint

Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.

Attribute The Allegory of Love (Mature)
Time · Extent Infinite
Time · Ontological Status Substantival
Time · Grain Continuous
Time · Freedom Non-Deterministic
Time · Traversability Linear
Time · Dimensionality One
Time · Direction Uni-directional
Space · Extent Infinite
Space · Ontological Status Substantival
Space · Curvature Flat
Space · Dimensionality Three
Space · Locality Local
Matter · Extent Infinite
Matter · Ontological Status Substantival
Matter · Conservation Conserved
Matter · Dimensionality Three
Matter · Locality Local
Observer · Time Instance Single
Observer · Space Instance Single
Observer · Knowledge Extent Partial
Observer · Knowledge Retainment Total
Observer · Physicality Embodied
Observer · Agency Active
Observer · Number Plural
Observer · Metaphysical Agency Personal
Observer · Moral Authority Reason
Observer · Theological Method
Energy · Extent Infinite
Energy · Ontological Status Substantival
Energy · Conservation Conserved
Energy · Dispersibility Irreversible
Information · Ontological Status Substantival
Information · Cosmic Conservation Conserved
Information · Personal Conservation Conserved
Information · Granularity Continuous

Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence

What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.

Time

The Allegory of Love

The long historical arc from twelfth-century troubadours through sixteenth-century Spenser.

Space

The Allegory of Love

Medieval European literary-cultural space — Provence, Northern France, England, Italy.

Matter

The Allegory of Love

The material texts — manuscripts, early printings — through which the tradition was transmitted.

Observer

The Allegory of Love

Lewis as philological-historical scholar; the medieval-Renaissance reading public the works addressed.

Energy

The Allegory of Love

The cultural-literary energies that produced courtly love and its allegorical expressions.

Information

The Allegory of Love

The literary-cultural content of the works treated; the historical-cultural analysis of "courtly love" as a phenomenon.

Internal Tensions

Where each work's argument pulls against itself.

The Allegory of Love

Lewis's "courtly love" thesis has been contested by subsequent medievalists (Donaldson, Robertson) who argue it imposes a unified concept on what was actually a more varied literary phenomenon. The work's broader literary-historical achievement is uncontested.