Abstract
Combining psychoanalytic and feminist theory, this book offers an approach to the troubadour poetry of medieval France and the central question of in these texts. The feminine object and the portrayal of gender relationships are analyzed through close readings of five major troubadours - Guillaume d'Aquitaine, Marcabru, Jaufre Rudel, Amaut Daniel and Guiraut Riquier - while the closing chapter offers a psychoanalytic account of courtly love as produced by a universal subtext. Rouben Cholakian suggests that the troubadour songs, far from being the cult of and feminity, are in fact the product of an androcentric, homosocial culture which excludes women, displacing its own fears and inadequacies on to them as a kind of scapegoat, in a way that may only be apprehended at the level of the unconscious by scrutinizing apparent contradictions in the text. This book is aimed at all serious students of medieval French poetry as well as those interested in feminist approaches to literature.
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