Abstract
Valentine's Day love poetry is a literary tradition that first found expression at the end of the 14th century, in England during the reign of Richard II. Following its transformations right up to Shakespeare and Thomas Hardy, and the " valentines " of traditional rural societies, the question of the cultural acculturation of courtly models is posed afresh. But these must also be understood in a more strictly political dimension, bringing into play notions of election and deliberation, from Chaucer to Christine de Pisan.