Then he goes through Purgatory and Heaven. In The Divine Comedy, Dante literally goes through Hell for Beatrice, the woman he loves. Italian poet Dante Alighieri was a great exponent of romantic love. They went from castle to castle serenading the ladies of the place with poems that begged for "mercy" that their "suffering" might be eased. According to Lewis, the troubadours, medieval poets from southern France and northern Spain and Italy, began the process of validating romantic love. In earlier times, it would have been unthinkable, as it still is in some regions of the world even today, for one to marry just because one claimed to be in love. Yet love, as portrayed in classical literature, is a very disruptive emotion, often linked, as it is in Hamlet, with madness. Even certain animals, like some birds, mate for life, a fact that cannot be accounted for by reproductive instincts alone. After all, we know from history, earlier literature, and even the Bible that the emotion we call love certainly existed as far back as we can document. Even if Lewis is just referencing the origins of true love as a tradition, it is still quite an extravagant claim. Lewis, in his book The Allegory of Love, the history of romantic love dates back only to about the year 1000 A.D. From Norman Loftis's Introduction to Women in Love According to theologian and scholar C.
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