The Romance of the Rose

Lorris, Guillaume de (1200–1238), translated by Kline, A. S. (contact-email)

Jean de Meung (c1240-c1305) wrote a long continuation (dated to between 1268 and 1285 by internal references) to this, the original Roman de la Rose. Jean claimed that it had been conceived by Guillaume de Lorris (c1200?-c1240?) some forty years earlier. Guillaume, it is presumed, came from the village of Lorris, near Orléans, in France; otherwise, nothing is known of his life. Clearly, he was educated and literate, and therefore likely to have been of the minor aristocracy. He produced in this Romance a dream allegory of courtly love, in a poetic, reflective and elegant style, but his world-view is also shrewd, with his reflections on love partly derived from Ovid’s Ars Amatoria: The Art of Love. Here Guillaume’s work is allowed to stand free of Jean's later work, as an epitome of the allegorical style and a fine development of the courtly tradition of ‘fin amour’.

Author Details

Guillaume de Lorris, a French poet and scholar of the early 13th century, was born c1200AD in Lorris, near Orléans, France. While specific details about his life, including his social background, remain largely unknown, his education and literacy suggest that he may have belonged to a minor aristocratic family.

His most renowned work is “Le Roman de la Rose” an allegorical poem on courtly love, written c1230. The poem is notable for its poetic elegance and insightful reflections on Love, Guillaume being strongly influenced by Ovid’s “Ars Amatoria”. “Le Roman de la Rose” is notable for its narrative structure, as it describes a dream state of the author, popularising the dream-poem as a genre, adopted by, among others, Geoffrey Chaucer in a number of his minor works.

Guillaume de Lorris created the original version of “Le Roman de la Rose”. The poem was later significantly expanded and developed by Jean de Meung, some forty years after de Lorris’ initial work, in a significantly different style, but embracing many of Guillaume’s core themes, and characters.

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Kline, A. S.

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