Więzienie miłości i uwięzienie w poezji. Alegoryczna architektura miłosna Małgorzaty z Nawarry

The prisons of love are among the oldest motifs of love literature because they can illustrate the torment of the lover, suffering in the service of his lady. This architecture is not as solid as it might seem, it easily falls apart and releases its prisoner when the lady accepts her lover and love becomes mutual. Marguerite de Navarre’s Prisons uses this scheme not to glorify human love, but to criticise it in the spirit of the French évangélisme. Through the traditional pattern of imprisonment, suffering and deliverance, the Queen of Navarre proposes a reflection on the limits of allegory and literature itself.