re: #381 Obdicut

Well, that depends what you mean. I certainly don’t think it’s arrogant to say that it’s pathological for someone to be sexually attracted to a child. I can think of corner cases when someone much older and someone much younger actually have a workable relationship, but they’re corner cases.

And Dante’s love for Beatrice was definitely bizarre as hell, given that he only ever saw her twice in his life, and the first time she was 8. It wasn’t really based on her as a person.

That sort of idealized courtly love thing…it’s a whole weird world unto itself. I mean, Petrach’s entire notion that Laura knew he was alive was based on her ‘accidentally’ dropping a glove in his presence. (Or, possibly, her simply accidentally dropping a glove close enough to him that he could jump on it like a slavering hyena.) Meanwhile, he was having a family with a woman who he never bothered to write a sonnet for.

Earlier, more traditional courtly love is different ball of wax. My favorite detail from Capellanus is that Marie of Champagne ruled that a married couple could not be courtly lovers.

This sort of thing changes so much over time.