The thirteenth-century Romance of the Rose was the most famous and influential dream vision of the Middle Ages. It recounts the dream of a young man who falls in love with and tries to win a Rosebud -- the symbol, at various points, of both the beloved woman and of her virginity. Read Rose Selections 1, passage 2 (pp. 52-59) for an allegorical account of how the Dreamer sees and falls in love with the Rose. The notion that Cupid's arrows can make you fall in love derives from classical literature (for example, the Latin poets Tibullus, Gallus, Catullus and Ovid mentioned in Rose Selections 1, passage 3, pp. 186-7; more on this passage below). Recall how the Romance of Eneas poet played with this convention, causing Eneas to fall in love with Lavinia after reading the letter which she shoots to him on an arrow.

The first 4000 lines of the Romance of the Rose were written by Guillaume de Lorris in the early 13th century (ca. 1230). While Guillaume may well have considered his poem to be complete, it was picked up and continued in the late 13th century (ca. 1275) by Jean de Meun, whose continuation of over 18,000 lines dwarfs and totally changes the character of the original poem. While Guillaume's poem is respectful of women and imbued with the spirit of "courtly love," Jean's continuation is highly disrespectful of women -- even misogynistic -- and extremely bawdy at times (we will discuss his account of plucking the Rosebud, found in Rose Selections 3, passage 4 [pp. 346-54], as a context for Christine de Pizan's reactions to the Romance of the Rose). More on these issues later; for now, you should simply be aware that the Romance of the Rose sparked an on-going controversy between the attackers and defenders of womankind (an issue we will return to when we read and discuss the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Christine de Pizan).

Chaucer knew the Romance of the Rose well, and admired it enough to translate parts of it into English (NA 211). By so doing, he demonstrated that he too was a translatio poet. Interestingly, the midpoint of the conjoined Romance of the Rose poems (the scene that comes halfway through the 22,000 lines of the combined texts; see Rose Selections 1, passage 3 [pp. 186-189]) is literally about translatio. In this scene, the God of Love explains how the classical love poets Tibullus, Gallus, Catullus and Ovid were followed by the French poet Guillaume de Lorris, whose work will itself be followed and completed by Jean de Meun (whom he calls "Jean Chopinel").

Recalling that Chaucer knew the French poem well (and translated parts of it into English), consider these further selections from the poem both for their intrinsic interest (remember that the Romance of the Rose is the best-seller of the 13th and 14th centuries) and as a context for the Wife of Bath.

Passage 1 (pp. 86-8): the end of Guillaume de Lorris's poem.  Note that although the poem does NOT recount the Dreamer's successful plucking of the Rose, Guillaume probably thought his poem WAS finished (although Jean de Meun evidently did not agree!).  Guillaume claims to have written his poem in order to impress a lady who has either already become his lover or whose "fair welcoming" he still hopes to gain.  It is a courtly love poem that aims to please her so that she might be persuaded to welcome (and presumably respond to) his attentions. In this context, one would hardly expect him to include an account of the plucking of the "rose"-- after all, one of the first rules of courtly love is that one should not "kiss and tell"!

Note also the introduction of the "Old Woman" ("La Vieille"), one of Chaucer's sources for the Wife of Bath.  (This relatively minor figure in Guillaume de Lorris's poem becomes a major character in Jean de Meun's continuation; an excerpt from her extremely long speech is included as the next passage.)  The Old Woman has been asked to guard a young man, Fair Welcoming ("Bel Accueil"), whom Jealousy has imprisoned in a tower; this allegorical character represents the lady's favorable response to the lover's courtship (i.e., Fair Welcoming being on the lover's side = the lady giving in to the lover's advances).  Note that Fair Welcoming is presented as male because the Old French term "bel accueil" is grammatically masculine.  The Old Woman is an effective guard for Fair Welcoming because of her extensive experience in love affairs in her own youth:  she can't be duped by the tricks young people resort to in order to meet in secret, in defiance of the wishes of their parents, jealous husbands, or chaperones, because due to her own youthful indiscretions, she "knew the whole of the old dance" of love (Rose p. 86, bottom).  Similarly, Chaucer says of the Wife of Bath (in the General Prologue portrait), "Of remedies of love she knew perchaunce,/ For she coude of that art the olde daunce" (GP 477-8).

Passage 2 (pp. 238-48): read this selection from the "Old Woman" ("La Vieille")'s speech in Jean de Meun's continuation, where she becomes a major character.  Read it  carefully and refer back to it while reading the WB's prologue and tale. What similarities do you find between Jean's Old Woman and Chaucer's Allison of Bath? How do they differ?  Consider e.g. their frank enjoyment of sex, their

Passage 3 (pp. 258-9): Note Jean de Meun's claim not to be a misogynist, his pride in his status as writer, his references to prior literary tradition (translatio!), and the metaphorical descriptions of pen, stylus, and the process of writing. Elsewhere, Jean  uses similar metaphors to refer to sex (where the pen or the stylus becomes the equivalent of the man's phallus; see Electronic Reserve Rose selections 3, passage 3 [pp. 322-30] and study guide for Christine de Pizan 1). Think about the implicit connection of writing to maleness. Should women write? Is feminine literacy, clerkliness, or literary activity considered to be "natural" behavior? The Wife of Bath has a lot to say about male assumptions concerning women and about women writing -- as well as about male writing about women.

Passage 4 (pp. 276-81): Note the misogyny (prejudice against women) displayed in many passages of Jean de Meun's poem. (Such attitudes do NOT occur in the first half of the poem written by Guillaume de Lorris.) Jean de Meun was widely admired for his erudition and learning, which he attributes to his following the auctores ("authors") who were themselves highly misogynous (see translatio for a refresher on the notion of literary authority, or auctoritas). Consider Jean de Meun's claims NOT to be against women. How seriously should we take them? How might a woman reader react to them?

Passage 5 (pp. 304-9): Note Jean de Meun's insistence upon the importance of books as repositories of knowledge which teach readers how to be noble and courteous, as well as his statements about the nobility (gentilesse) of learned men and "clerks," which he seems to feel is "nobler" than the inherited "nobility" of the aristocracy.  In this regard, his position offers a variant on that offered by Chaucer in his lyric poem "Gentilesse," where he asserts that true nobility was a function of one's behavior rather than of noble birth.

LOOKING AHEAD: you will want to keep these passages in mind when we consider the writings of Christine de Pizan, an actual (rather than fictional) woman writer who was highly offended by the misogyny of literary tradition in general and of Jean de Meun's Romance of the Rose in particular.
 

Like Chaucer (who translated parts into English), Christine knew the Romance of the Rose exceedingly well. Consider these final selections from the poem both for their intrinsic interest (remember that the Romance of the Rose was the "best-seller" of the 13th and 14th centuries) and as a context for reading Christine de Pizan.

Passage 1 (Electronic Reserve Rose selections 3, pp. 133-137): An example of the crude language in parts of Jean de Meun's poem that offended Christine. Lady Reason (an allegorical figure) lectures the Lover/Dreamer about the fact that "naughty" words are just words and should not offend anyone. Male and female genitalia are part of God's creation and necessary for the propagation of the species, and there's nothing wrong with naming them by their names. Note the scholarly tone (references to learned sources and statements about "glossing" the meaning of a text; recall similar statements in the Prologue to the Lais of Marie de France).  Another passage where linguistic crudeness is coupled with references to male, authoritative scholarly tradition is found in Electronic Reserve Rose Selections 2, passage 2 (p. 239, assigned to be read along with the Wife of Bath).  Here the Old Woman's talks about the Trojan War and other battles she claims were waged by men for the sake of a woman's con (Old French for, ahem, "cunt"). In the same sentence, she praises the written records which preserve the memories of these battles (compare similar laudatory statements about writing in the prologues of Marie de France and of Chrétien de Troyes's romances Erec and Enide, Cligés and the Knight of the Cart.).

Passage 2 (Electronic Reserve Rose selections 3, p. 80): Guillaume de Lorris's most explicit statement concerning the completeness of his poem. Note that everything he says it is "right" for him to tell about IS told by the time his section of the poem is completed (review the end of Guillaume's poem at Rose pp. 86-88, passage one in Electronic Reserve Rose selections 2.) Note that Guillaume puts the seizing of the Rose outside the framework of what it is appropriate and "right" to tell in his poem. (His is a courtly work, and a courtly lover is NOT supposed to "kiss and tell"!) His poem is geared toward pleasing the beloved lady, in hope that she might grant him the gift of her "rosebud"; it is NOT a place to gloat about plucking it or to describe that event in graphic terms! Jean de Meun's purpose and tone will be very different from Guillaume's.

Passage 3 (Electronic Reserve Rose selections 3, pp. 322-30). Despite his protestations to the contrary (review Electronic Reserve Rose selections 2, passage 3, pp. 258-9, read for last class), Jean de Meun is clearly one of the misogynistic clerics that so irritated the Wife of Bath (and Christine!).  Here "Genius," an allegorical representation of the sexual drive, talks about the necessity of procreation. Notice that some of his arguments rejoin those of the Wife of Bath, who similarly defends sexual activity against those who would preach chastity. But unlike the Wife of Bath, Genius takes an exclusively male perspective. The metaphors used to describe sexual activity equate male genitalia with styluses, hammers and plows, while female genitalia are tablets, anvils, and fallow fields. In all of these metaphors, men are those that act, while women are that which is acted upon. Men are subjects, while women are objectified. According to the Wife of Bath, this is precisely the problem with much misogynistic writing BY men ABOUT women. It is interesting to note that the metaphor of the stylus and the tablet equates the penis with a writing instrument while woman is what men write on -- an apt illustration of the "phallocentric" tradition of clerical misogyny to which both the Wife of Bath and Christine de Pizan react.

Passage 4 (Electronic Reserve Rose selections 3, pp. 346-54). The end of Jean's poem uses the same metaphors found in passage 3 (plowing, writing, etc.) to recount the Dreamer's final conquest of the Rose (he "deflowers" her, so to speak). These pages don't need much commentary -- they are fairly self explanatory. Note the extreme crudeness -- even obscenity -- of the allegory. Comparison of what Jean de Meun sees as the appropriate ending of the poem with what Guillaume thought was the appropriate ending (see passage 2, above) makes clear the difference in tone, attitude and purpose of the two poems. While Guillaume is highly respectful of women, Jean regards them as little more than sexual objects. It's no wonder that Christine de Pizan found his work offensive and objectionable.