The Play of Love, 1230–1578: A Case Study and Edition

ABSTRACT This article offers the first comprehensive history of the “play of love”—a similitude that compares God’s withdrawal in temptation to a mother at play with her young child—from its origin in Ancrene Wisse through its subsequent appearances in English and Latin devotional writing. In Ancrene Wisse, the scene allows an anchorite to understand her emotion in light of God’s love while acknowledging that God’s unprompted withdrawal causes suffering. The play of love was subsequently excerpted, translated into Latin, and circulated in England and on the continent. A Latin compilation misattributed to Richard Rolle, Quandoque tribularis (edited in the appendix), and later Middle English works refashion the play of love to prescribe specific practices or emotions. This case history thus reveals surprising connections between early English vernacular religious writing, Latinate European readers, and later medieval English compilers, as well as an object lesson in these readers’ changing expectations.