Experiences of the Loving Nature in Some Examples of Vernacular Literatures in the Middle Ages (12th and 13th Centuries)

Abstract

Poetic expressions, as Hispanic popular lyric shows in its vast tradition, appropriated the natural landscape and endowed its elements with a meaning, thus exteriorising the exploration of its own expressive ways through which it could communicate human sensitivity and transmit love, in particular. From this proof and according to the symbolism that poetry assigns to natural elements, this article will explore three French stories (Tristan et Isolde, Cligès, and the Roman de la Rose), with the aim of discovering the intimate relationship established between the loving subject and the natural cosmos. It is possible to argue that, in these texts, Nature expands its essence and translates the different sensations that the amorous enjoyment raises. This establishes an affinity between lovers and natural components in which the latter capture the experience of those feelings, and become, thus, the metaphor of a nascent subjectivity still in search of its voices.