Da doutrina à vivência : amor, amizade e casamento no "Leal Conselheiro" do Rei D. Duarte

Abstract

The study of the theme of love and marriage in 14th. and 15th. Century Portuguese literature requires an exhaustive and careful analysis of the different texts in which it either directly or indirectly appears. In the particular case of King D. Duarte's «Leal Conselheiro» the theme of love, either in the sense of friendship (derived from the Christian concept of charity), or in the more specific case of marital love, is discussed and developed in certain central chapters; this article will attempt to analyse these chapters, relating them to each other and to the work as a whole. It is in these chapters that the theme of love, and the place it occupies in the life of married couples, is the object of reflection on the part of the King; this reflection essentially seeks the moral and spiritual improvement of the social group at which it is directed, and which it intends to «educate».