Which 1936 C.S. Lewis book studies medieval allegorical love literature?

The Allegory of Love is C.S. Lewis’s 1936 study of medieval allegorical love literature.

The book examines how European writers represented love through allegory, especially in the medieval tradition. Lewis discusses courtly love and traces its literary development through works associated with authors such as Ovid, Chrétien de Troyes, and Edmund Spenser. The study helped establish his reputation as a major scholar of English literature.

Lewis argues that literary conventions can shape how an age imagines emotion, morality, and social relationships. His approach combines close reading with broad historical comparisons, making the work important beyond the specific poems and romances it discusses.

The book is academic criticism, not a novel or a general history of romantic love. Readers sometimes confuse it with The Four Loves, Lewis’s later popular work about affection, friendship, erotic love, and charity.