| الملخص: | <p>Love is a slippery subject, its effect can be physical—capturing, striking, controlling—but its physical form is not always clearly described. This ambiguity is exacerbated by the fact that the Latin word 'amor', the root of love in romance languages, is both an abstract concept and the name of a series of famous figures, from the Cupid of Classical Antiquity to the Lord of Love developed in medieval poetry, and sometimes even the Christian God. Tracing the tendrils of tradition that link these figures into one history of 'amor', this thesis examines visual as well as literary culture to arrive at an overview of the many looks of Love from classical Rome to pre-Renaissance Italy. As well as canonical authors including Virgil, Ovid, and Dante, this thesis explores the depiction of love in works of lesser known late antique poets (Ausonius, Dracontius, Ennodius), various medieval sources (from the 'Roman d’Enéas' to the laude of Jacopone da Todi), a number of Christian exegetical traditions, and a broad spread of examples from visual culture, from Roman Imperial wall-painting to late antique silverware and thirteenth-century manuscript illuminations. Rather than seeking to separate and divide the multitude of meanings that crowd around this single noun, this thesis focuses on the threads of continuity that bring the sacred and secular into touch, placing love on a spectrum of meanings—from the erotic to the divine—that often defy clear categorisation. As well as a map to the survival of Cupid in the Middle Ages, this is a study of the enduring ambiguity of 'amor', the vast signifying power of love, and the slipperiness of the many figures that have been used to represent it. </p>
|
|---|