Contents
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction. Vulnus amoris and Passio: The Sacred-Profane
Connection
1.1 Vulnus amoris and Passio_: Sensibility, Vulnerability and Subjectivity
1.2 “Vulnerasti cor meum” (_Canticum canticorum 4:9): Love’s Wound, the Heart
and the Eyes
2 Love’s Wound in Medieval Romance Love Poetry
2.1 The ponha d’amor, the compunctio amoris and Love’s Wound: The Fathers of
the Church, Jaufre Rudel and his Influence on Raimbaut d’Aurenga
2.2 Lyrical Wounds of Love: The Gaze and the Kiss (Langue d’Oc, Langue d’Oïl,
Medieval Italian Love Poetry)
2.3 The Birth of Passion: Petrarch, Era ’l giorno ch’al sol si scoloraro
2.4 Conclusions
3 “Amours est plaie dedenz cors / e si ne piert nïent defors”: Marie de
France, Blondel de Nesle and the Occitan Romance Flamenca
3.1 Marie de France
3.1.1 The lai de Guigemar
3.2 Blondel de Nesle
3.3 Flamenca
3.4 Conclusions
4 Passio Christi. Love’s Wound in Medieval Religious Literature
4.1 Staging Christ’s Passion
4.2 Saint Francis, the Stigmata and the Laude in Medieval Italy
Excursus: The Virgin Mary and the Dynamics of Joy and Sorrow
Excursus: The Pelican as Figura Christi in the Bestiaries
4.3 Conclusions
5 The Wound of Passion, the Bleeding Lance and the Grail Tradition
5.1 The Wound of Passion: Tristan and Lancelot (with Some Considerations on
Marie de France’s Lai de Yonec)
5.2 The Wound, the Bleeding Lance and the Grail Tradition
Excursus: King Arthur as Melancholy “Christ in Distress” in London, BL
Additional 10294, fol. 94r
Excursus: The Healing Power of Christ’s Blood
5.3 Conclusions
6 She Wounds, She Heals: Healing the Wound
6.1 Ambivalences and Ambiguities: The Wound, its Healing Therapy and the
Image of the “Supernatural” Woman in the Middle Ages
6.2 The “Supernatural” Woman in Lyric Poetry – from William IX, Duke of
Aquitaine, to Petrarch
6.3 Yseut la Blonde and Guenevere
Excursus: The Virgin Mary as a “Healer”
Excursus: The Phantasmatic Image that Wounds and Heals
6.4 “Beata Beatrix”
6.5 Conclusions
7 To Conclude
8 Bibliography
Index of Primary Authors