The Romance of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun

*contains spoilers*


Between the years 1225 and 1230, Guillaume de Lorris worked on and completed his portion of this novel, called Roman de la Rose, which was taken up by Jean de Meun and completed between the years 1269 and 1278. In fact, the only reason we know of Lorris’s identity at all is because Meun mentions him in his own portion of the text, giving a firm justification for the idea of paying homage to one’s literary forbears. Thanks to Meun’s attentive assignation, we are luckily not burdened by the prospect of having to refer to this text as part apocryphal.


Though it came later – some hundred years or so – this text constantly brought to my mind the allegory contained in William Langland’s Piers Plowman through its use of the personification of abstract human qualities and actions such as Courtesy, Chastity and Fair Welcome. Once more we have a young man on the brink of adulthood drifting off to sleep by a river, and the images and messages that come to him in a resulting dream tell him of the art of love and courtly, chivalric romance. To some of you this might bring to mind Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, and rightly so. There is intertextuality in abundance, and this is a great source of joy and added depth to the text for the experienced reader. You’ll notice also many references to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Virgil’s The Aeneid, and Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey – among many others*.


Indeed, as our Lover ventures into the Garden of Pleasure, the Spring of Narcissus is its centrepiece (hello, Ovid) with its own centrepiece of two mirrors reflecting both sides of the garden. In the perfect reflection of one of these mirrors, a rosebud catches our young Lover’s eye, and he attempts to gain access to the rose bush and is blocked from doing so. Here steps up the ugly and cantankerous Rebuff, and from there we see Reason descending from her heavenly throne to plead with our Lover to not give himself over to Love in fear of Rebuff’s powerful and debilitating effects – but, naturally, it is too late, as our Lover has already pledged his life to Love. Though not much is known of our authors, it is clear that classical educations have been had by both – the rhetoric used by all of these personifications of human qualities and actions are works of floridly-patterned oratory. In mentioning this, it’s appropriate to also make clear that the reader must be careful not to confuse any specific argument a character espouses with the opinions of the authors themselves, though the arguments are in fact so clinically rendered that it’s difficult to be persuaded against this proposition. But do keep this in mind, as some of their speeches go to such lengths (and for some length) that it’s difficult not to be swayed.


For fear of having said too much to the point of sapping the joy from this wonderfully colourful work, I’ll leave it there for now. But thanks for reading what I’ve got to say. Now get reading Romance of the Rose! I urge you to buy the Oxford World’s Classics edition translated from Felix Lecoy’s manuscript by Frances Horgan (I know her – and she’s lovely). It really is a delight to read.


*Do remember to keep tabs on the texts referenced or quoted along the way, which you’ve not read or even heard of. It’ll be very useful for adding breadth to your knowledge.

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