Le Roman de la Rose

Le Roman de la Rose , French poem of 22,000 lines in eight-syllable couplets. It is in two parts. The first (4,058 lines) was written (c.1237) by Guillaume de Lorris and was left unfinished. It is an elaborate allegory on the psychology of love, often subtle and charming. The second part was written (1275-80) by Jean de Meun , who stressed reproduction of the human race as the achievement of God's purpose in the world and digressed into discussion of various subjects. The Middle English Romaunt of the Rose (1st ed. 1532) is a fragmentary translation of the Roman. Chaucer translated a portion of the work. An old standard translation into English is that by Frederick S. Ellis (1900); a later one is by H. W. Robbins (1962).

Bibliography: See C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love (1936).

Roman de la Rose an extremely influential French poem (‘the Story of the Rose’) of the 13th century, an allegorical romance embodying the aristocratic ethic of courtly love. It was composed by two different authors some forty years apart.