Love: Ancient and Modern Representations

Abstract

This chapter argues that although concepts more or less overlapping with the idea of true love may be found in ancient literature, the academic appreciation of such concepts is today complicated by certain divides in scholarship. The chapter identifies the theory that true love was invented in mediaeval France, here dubbed ‘the mediaeval model of love’, as particularly challenging, and suggests that this scheme should be recalibrated to include classical antiquity. It therefore launches an alternative model and outlines how it might help to bridge several divides in the research so that a scholarly map might be drawn that fits the landscape of ancient love literature more accurately.