Rethinking the "romance of the rose": text, image, reception

The Romance of the Rose has been a controversial text since it was written in the thirteenth century. There is evidence for radically different readings as as early as the first half of the fourteenth century. The text provided inspiration for both courtly and didactic poets. Some read it as a celebration of human love; others as an erudite philosophical work; still others as a satirical representation of social and sexual follies. On one hand it was praised as an edifying treatise, on the other condemned as lascivious and misogynistic.Kevin Brownlee and Sylvia Huot and the contributors to this volume-Pierre-Yves Badel, Emmanuele Baumgartner, John V. Fleming, Robert Pogue Harrison, David F. Hult, Stephen G. Nichols, Lee Patterson, Daniel Poirion, Karl D. Uitti, Dieuwke E. van der Poel, and Lori Walters-represent all the major areas of current work on the Romance of the Rose, both in American and in Europe. The volume will be of value to students and scholars of medieval literature, intellectual history, and art history.

Frontmatter --; Contents --; Acknowledgments --; Introduction: Rethinking the Rose --; Part I. Reading The Rose: Guillaume de Lorris --; 1.The Play of Temporalities; or, The Reported Dream of Guillaume de Lorris /; 2. "Cele [qui] doit estre Rose Clamee" (Rose, Vv. 40-44): Guillaume's Intentionality /; 3. From Rhyme to Reason: Remarks on the Text of the Romance of the Rose /; Part II. Reading the Rose: Jean de Meun --; 4. Jean de Meun and the Ancient Poets /; 5. Language and Dismemberment: Abelard, Origen, and the Romance of the Rose /; Part III. The Illuminated Rose --; 6. Ekphrasis, Iconoclasm, and Desire /; 7. Illuminating the Rose: Gui de Mori and the Illustrations of MS 101 of the Municipal Library, Tournai /; Part IV. The Reception of the Rose in France --; 8. Authors, Scribes, Remanieurs: A Note on the Textual History of the Romance of the Rose /; 9. Discourses of the Self: Christine de Pizan and the Romance of the Rose /; 10. Alchemical Readings of the Romance of the Rose /; Part V. The Reception of the Rose Outside France --; 11. The Bare Essential: The Landscape of II Fiore /; 12. A Romance of a Rose and Florentine: The Flemish Adaptation of the Romance of the Rose /; 13. Feminine Rhetoric and the Politics of Subjectivity: La Vieille and the Wife of Bath /; Appendix: Author Portraits and Textual Demarcation in Manuscripts of the Romance of the Rose /; Index --; Contributors / Baumgartner, Emmanuèle --; Uitti, Karl D. --; Poirion, Daniel --; Fleming, John V. --; Hult, David F. --; Nichols, Stephen G. --; Walters, Lori --; Huot, Sylvia --; Brownlee, Kevin --; Badel, Pierre-Yves --; Harrison, Robert Pogue --; Poel, Dieuwke E. van der --; Patterson, Lee --; Walters, Lori --