Livre d’amoretes: , ed. Marie-Geneviève Grossel and Anne Ibos-Augé. Classiques français du moyen âge. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2022, 543 pp.

The persistence of medieval “crossover” – between the literary expressions of sacred and profane love – is a topic of perennial fascination to scholars and to all who engage with poetry old or new. Of course, the popular terms “fusion” or “synergy” would better apply to the rich tradition of allegory based in the Song of Songs, an erotic dream vision that never refers to God, but has always given rise to spiritualized readings of the courtship interplay between the Bride, commonly interpreted as the human soul, the Bridegroom (for Christians, Jesus), and attendants of the Bride (fellow Christians/humanity at large).