page_title: Roman de la Rose
hierarchical_section_title: Roman de la Rose
caption_attribution_description: English: Miniature from a manuscript of the Roman de la Rose (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 364), folio 83, Mirth and Gladness lead a dance.
context_page_description: Le Roman de la Rose is a medieval poem in Old French, styled as an allegorical dream vision. As poetry, The Romance of the Rose is a notable instance of courtly literature meant to entertain and to teach about the art of romantic love. Throughout the narrative, the word Rose is used both as the name of the titular lady and as an abstract symbol of female sexuality. The names of the other characters function both as personal names and as metonyms illustrating the different factors that lead to and constitute a love affair.
  The Romance of the Rose was written in two stages. In the first stage of composition, circa 1230, Guillaume de Lorris wrote 4,058 lines describing a courtier's attempts at wooing his beloved woman. The first part of the poem's story is set in a walled garden, an example of a locus amoenus, a traditional literary topos in epic poetry and chivalric romance. Forty-five years later, circa 1275, in the second stage of composition, Jean de Meun wrote 17,724 additional lines, in which allegorical personages, such as Reason, Nature, and Genius, discuss the philosophy of love and the Lover attains his goal.
context_section_description: Le Roman de la Rose (The Romance of the Rose) is a medieval poem in Old French, styled as an allegorical dream vision. As poetry, The Romance of the Rose is a notable instance of courtly literature meant to entertain and to teach about the art of romantic love. Throughout the narrative, the word Rose is used both as the name of the titular lady and as an abstract symbol of female sexuality. The names of the other characters function both as personal names and as metonyms illustrating the different factors that lead to and constitute a love affair.
  The Romance of the Rose was written in two stages. In the first stage of composition, circa 1230, Guillaume de Lorris wrote 4,058 lines describing a courtier's attempts at wooing his beloved woman. The first part of the poem's story is set in a walled garden, an example of a  locus amoenus, a traditional literary topos in epic poetry and chivalric romance. Forty-five years later, circa 1275, in the second stage of composition, Jean de Meun wrote 17,724 additional lines, in which allegorical personages, such as Reason, Nature, and Genius, discuss the philosophy of love and the Lover attains his goal.
caption: The characters Mirth and Gladness lead a dance, in a miniature image from a manuscript of The Romance of the Rose in the Bodleian Library (MS Douce 364, folio 8r).
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