Don A. Monson

DON A. MONSON, Andreas Capellanus, Scholasticism, and the Courtly Tradition. Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005. Pp. ix, 383. $66.95.

Three book-length studies in English devoted to Andreas Capellanus's De amore (Gaffney 1977, Cherchi 1994, Andersen-Wyman 2005) take the theme of love as their main object of investigation. Monson is exceptional in offering a study of the construction of the text. Noting that Andreas studies are at "something of an impasse" (2), he brings a renewed concern for formal considerations into the effort to understand the De amore. He does so by looking outside the text rather than within, first examining the cultural context of thought in 12th-century France in which Andreas the courtier-cleric lived and wrote. Monson claims that the "scholastic organization of the De amore is certainly one of its most striking features" (3-4). The loves of feudal society, vernacular poetry, the Ovidian tradition, and Christian doctrine find a place in Andreas's treatise but gain their significance through an organizing frame taken from scholasticism. The careful examination of the scholastic form which shapes the borrowed concepts of the treatise makes for a striking reading sure to reanimate discussion in all areas of Andreas studies despite Monson's claim that his book should resolve all controversies (4).

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