SOURCE: “Andreas Capellanus and the Problem of Irony,” in Speculum, Vol. 63, No. 3, July, 1988, pp.539-72.

In the following essay, Monson critiques assorted ironic interpretations of De Amore and concludes that none of them satisfactorily deals with the work in all of its aspects.

Among the various controversies surrounding the treatise on love attributed to Andreas Capellanus, none is more vexed than the question of the work's tone. Is the De amore to be taken as a serious, straightforward treatment of its subject, or should it be interpreted, in whole or in part, as humorous or ironic? This question is of crucial importance to our understanding of the work and of its place in medieval literature—hence the considerable interest and passion it has aroused.

A generation ago most scholars were in agreement in taking the work seriously and in viewing it as the earliest and best codification of...