Courtly Seductions, Modern Subjections: Troubadour Literature and the Medieval Construction of the Modern World

A critical analysis of courtly love and medieval troubadour literature, this book claims they were instrumental in the constitution of the modern subject and its preparation for life in the highly regulated societies of the modern world. Relating troubadour texts to the rise of commerce, luxury commodities, social differentiation, the centralization of authority, and the crusades, the author proposes that western romantic love, from its courtly beginnings, eroticized the forms and values of the early European commercial economy and nation-states—playing a key role in the subjection of medieval hearts, minds and bodies to the disciplines of emerging modern powers.