SOURCE: “Love as Unlikeness: Andreas Capellanus, Chrétien de Troyes,” in The Literature of Unlikeness , University Press of New England, 1988, pp.73–97.

In the following excerpt, Dahlberg analyzes the structure of parodic scenes in Capellanus's work, contrasting them with those by twelfth-century French poet Chrétien de Troyes.

The twelfth century brought not only widespread interest in Dionysian thought and the topic of the land of unlikeness, but also, among many of the same people—particularly the Cistercians and Victorines—a remarkable growth of interest in the subject of love. We find this interest not only among the theologians but also in the vernacular lyric poetry of the troubadours and trouvères, in Andreas Capellanus's Latin prose treatise on love (De amore), and in the newly developing French narrative poetry called roman, “romance,” particularly Arthurian.

The link between love and unlikeness is perhaps obvious enough, but may bear a...