Roman de la Rose

Le Roman de la Rose The Romance of the Rose is the medieval courtly literature, purporting to dispense a "mirror of love" in which the whole art of romantic love is disclosed. Its two authors conceived it as a psychological allegory; throughout the Lover's quest, the word Rose is used both as the develope of the titular lady together with as an abstract symbol of female sexuality. The label of the other characters function both as personal names as well as as metonyms illustrating the different factors that lead to and represent a love affair. Its long-lasting influence is evident in the number of surviving manuscripts of the work, in the many translations and imitations it inspired, and in the praise and controversy it inspired.

Translation and influence

Part of the story was translated from its original Old French into Middle English as The Romaunt of the Rose, which had a great influence on English literature. Chaucer was familiar with the original French text, and a piece of the Middle English translation is thought to be his work. Criticsthat the quotation of "La Vieille" acted as source the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical thing for Chaucer's Wife of Bath. There were several other early translations into languages including Middle Dutch Heinrik van Aken, c. 1280. Il Fiore is a "reduction" of the poem into 232 Italian sonnets by a "ser Durante", sometimes thought to have been Dante, although this is loosely thought unlikely. Dante never mentions the Roman, but is often said to have been highly conscious of it in his own work. In 1900, the pre-Raphaelite F. S. Ellis translated the whole of the poem into English verse, with the exception of a section describing a sexual encounter, which he pointed in an appendix in Old French with the note that he "believes that those who will read them will allow that he is justified in leaving them in the obscurity of the original". C. S. Lewis's 1936 examine The Allegory of Love renewed interest in the poem.