[MR] Poetry Competition at Bright Hills Baronial Birthday

[Katherine Hawkins]

The Poetry of Courtly Love
 
The Poeta Atlantiae is holding a poetry competition.  The subject is courtly love.  Your poem should be written in the style of a medieval courtly love poem. Courtly love was a medieval European idea of nobly and chivalrously expressing love and admiration.  Courtly love was secret and generally not practiced between husband and wife (however, there are no rules that dictate that your poem cannot be written to your spouse).  It began at the end of the eleventh century in the courts of Aquitaine, Provence, Champagne, ducal Burgundy and Norman Sicily. Essentially, courtly love was an experience between desire and spiritual attainment that now seems contradictory as "a love at once illicit and morally elevating, passionate and disciplined, humiliating and exalting, human and transcendent."  Be prepared to present your poem to the attendees at some time during the day.
 
NO DOCUMENTATION IS REQUIRED.  However, you must state briefly the medieval style in which your poem is written.

Lady Katarzyna Witkowska
Poeta Atlantiae
Seneschal, Barony of Bright Hills
 "Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history." ~Plato, Ion