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Guillaume
de Lorris
Le Roman de la rose
(The Tale of the rose) c.1350
Courtesy of Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département
des Manuscrits
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Le
Roman de la rose
c.1350
Le
Roman de la rose is an allegorical work written
in France in the thirteenth century, and later
recognised as a national masterpiece.
The
author, who writes in the first person, is the
'Lover' in the story. He travels in his dreams
through a marvellous orchard where 'Déduit'
(Deduct) and his companions, 'Jeunesse'
(Youth), 'Liesse' (Gaiety) and 'Beauté'
(Beauty) live. These personified courtly ideals
are the real protagonists of the tale, as they
follow the adventures of the Lover who must avoid
the traps set by 'Malebouche' (Bad Mouth),
'Danger' (Danger) and 'Jalousie' (Jealousy)
in order to win his Lady, the Rose.
Without
being luxurious, the manuscript stands out among
the average editions of the fourteenth century
because of the quantity and quality of its paintings:
30 for the text attributed to Guillaume de Lorris
and 49 for the sequel written by Jean de Meun.
Throughout the text, gold-filigreed letters, inscribed
by two different artists, indicate the beginning
of each paragraph. The paintings, however, with
the exception of one leaf, are the work of one
artist only. Although we do not know for whom
this copy was made, the coat of arms added at
the bottom of leaf 1, in the fifteenth century,
shows that it belonged to the family of Joyeuse,
before passing into the hands of Antoine de Tournon
in the sixteenth century.
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