What 1936 book made C.S. Lewis known as a literary historian of medieval love?

The Allegory of Love made C.S. Lewis known as a literary historian of medieval love.

Published in 1936, The Allegory of Love is a scholarly study of medieval and Renaissance literature. Lewis examines the development of allegorical treatments of love, discussing writers and traditions including courtly love and major English poetry. The book helped establish his reputation as an influential literary critic.

Its academic method combines close reading with broad historical interpretation. Lewis later held a chair of medieval and Renaissance literature at Cambridge, but much of his earlier academic career was at Oxford. His criticism often argued that literature should be read within the intellectual and cultural world that produced it.

The title is sometimes confused with The Four Loves, which is a later, more accessible book about types of human love. The Allegory of Love is primarily literary scholarship, not a general work of Christian ethics or psychology.