Elegant Italian Renaissance Concept Of Love

From the fourteenth century, the system which including manorial system, feoff system, chivalry and guild system gradually declined. This phenomenon indicated the production relations of feudal system are not suited for the development of productive forces any more. At the same time, a new ideology and thinking mode which accommodate the need of city prosperity and correspond the desirability of rising citizen class came into being in Florence of Italy firstly. The Renaissance lasted for three hundred years in Europe. It was an enlightenment movement involved philosophy, ethics, literature and political thought of enlightenment. In particular, the humanist literary campaign which aim is to discover the value of human and develop his personality had an important impact on western society. The moral values of upper classes in Italy experienced a series of profound changes, including the view of love.Italian humanists, as a special cultural estate in society, had a deeper understanding of society's politics and reality at that time. Humanists responded on their own to these changes, which centralized reflected in the view of love incarnated from their works. By analyzing the courtly love existed in Italy society, we can find out the thread of thought in Italy Renaissance history.The courtly love in Renaissance is the continuance and development of courtly love in Middle Ages. The courtly love was originated from lyric poetry in Provence of France southern part. Because of the peculiar social environment including recovery of Europe economy and rise of city, the courtly love spreads and develops in Europe continually. On these bases, in addition to the three characteristics of courtly love in Middle Ages: equality, extramarital and one-sided love, the courtly love in Renaissance is more reasonable than the Middle Ages.Based on the original works of Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio, Boiardo, Ariosto and Tasso, the paper makes great effort to come to a conclusion that the humanists's love contains courtly love which origined from medieval chivalry. The courtly love was experiencing notable change from the early period of Renaissance to the prosperous period and late period of Renaissance, the society gradually admited that love is one kind of inexorable strength. These classical literary works include "La Vita Nuova" and "Divine Comedy" of Dante, "Canzoniere"of Petrarch, "Thirteen questions of love"and "Loving to be destroyed" of Boccaccio in early phase. Besides, these works include "Il Morgante" of pulci, "Orlando innamortato" of Boiardo , "Orlando Furioso" of Ariosto, "Rinaldo", "Aminta"and "La Gerusalemme Liberata" of Tasso,"Gli Asolani" of Bembo in mid-late period.By comparing the early humanists works and the mid-late humanists works of Italian Renaissance, we could find out the similarity and difference of their courtly love and the influence of this kind of love. This effect concentratedly embodied in the position improvement of female and purifying of humanists.