What was the name of C.S. Lewis’s medieval-literature book published in 1936?

The Allegory of Love was C.S. Lewis’s medieval-literature study published in 1936. Its full title is The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition, and it examines how medieval and early Renaissance writers represented love through allegorical forms.

Lewis discusses works and traditions associated with courtly love, including medieval poetry and the influence of allegorical writing. The book helped establish his academic reputation and won the Hawthornden Prize in 1937. It also demonstrates the historical range that shaped his teaching and literary criticism.

The work is different from Lewis’s popular Christian apologetics and fantasy fiction. He later wrote other major scholarly books, including A Preface to Paradise Lost in 1942 and The Discarded Image in 1964. Because those titles also concern older literature, readers sometimes confuse them with The Allegory of Love.