Author: Lucas Wood, Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Literatures, Texas Tech University - Academia.edu, Google Scholar

Abstract: »In Chapter 2, ‘“That love should be love’s recompense”: Courtly Seduction, Compulsory Compassion, and Coercive Desire in Alain Chartier’s La Belle Dame sans mercy’, Lucas Wood reads the fifteenth-century Belle Dame as an example of ‘submissive’ masculine desire exerting its coercive power through naturalised courtly metaphors and a prescriptive ethics of feminine compassion. Wood thus draws attention to the ways in which courtly discourse itself becomes a coercive force within which consent can be compromised, while also interrogating the possibility of ladies’ ability to offer philosophical and rhetorical resistance to the supposed obligation of reciprocity.« (Source: Bonsall, Jane, and Hannah Piercy. »Introduction: Why Reconsider Medieval Consent and Coercion? Why Now?« Reconsidering Consent and Coercion: Power, Vulnerability, and Sexual Violence in Medieval Literature. Edited by Jane Bonsall et al. Turnhout 2025: 30)

Wikipedia: History of Europe: History of France | Literature: French literature / Alain Chartier, La Belle Dame sans Mercy | Sex and the law: Sexual violence