Arts of Friendship The Idealization of Friendship in Medieval and Early Renaissance Literature

"The Arts of Friendship focusses on literary representations of three categories of ideal friendship -- Christian, chivalric, and humanistic -- and the writers' strategies of establishing the ethical authority of their contemporary friends and codes on a par with antiquity's "amicitia perfecta. The study identifies the extent to which writers acknowledged women as perfect friends. The selected texts under examination include, among others, hagiographies, works of Bernard of Clairvaux and Aelred of Rievaulx, "The Quest of the Holy Grail, Thomas' "Tristan, the "Prose Lancelot, "Ami and Amile, the "Decameron, and L.B. Alberti's "Dell'amicizia. Literary comparatists and historians, ethical historians, and students of rhetoric will find of interest the comparative study of the rhetorical topos of perfect friendship, the varied ethical criteria inherent there, and the writers' strategies for representing and authorizing an idea.Hyatte, Reginald is the author of 'Arts of Friendship The Idealization of Friendship in Medieval and Early Renaissance Literature' with ISBN 9789004100183 and ISBN 9004100180.