The Romance of the RoseMarch 16, 2020

Then it was day, and I awoke

Morgan 948, 207r

The key to reading?

Ainsinc va des contreres choses,

les unes sunt des autres gloses;

et qui l’une an veust defenir,

de l’autre li doit souvenir,

ou ja, par nul antancion,

n’i metra diffinicion

Thus it goes with contrary things

The ones gloss the others

And whoever wishes to define the one

Should remember the other

Or never, by any intention/application

Will he be able to establish a definition/distinction there

Sermon of GeniusTextuality and authorship

Irony (“I prefer to be concise” 300); (“a lesson is more easily retained when it is concisely delivered” 317)

“the text of which we have already given an account” (300)

“The delightful Romance of the Rose” (306)

Learn and teach the sermon (307)

The two gardens are as different as truth and fiction (312)

The “diffinitive santance” (301)Metaphors for sex: stylus and tablets; hammers and anvils; ploughs and fields. All related to Aristotelian understandings of form and matter.

Critique of clerical celibacy (302), from one dressed as a cleric, and promising absolution.

“I would like to end my sermon soon”; limits of language (313-314)

The two gardens (307-317)

Grass and flowers (308)

Time is not measured (308)

The end of the golden age (again) (309)Jupiter’s proclamation – each should seek his own satisfaction

Invention or institution of agriculture, private property, hunting, domestication of animals, cooking (310)

Time (311)

Shepherd and the white lamb

Morgan 948, 193v

The two gardens (307-317)

“this lover” (312); the “young man tells us” (313); “he deserves to be mocked” (314); “he says” (314); “he tells us” (314)

10 ugly images (312); hell and the entire created world are outside of the fair park (313)

Everything in the garden is perishable (313), but all in the park is “delightful, true, and lasting” (314)

The two gardens (307-317)

The two springs (314). The water in the former comes from elsewhere. The latter is comprised of channels that are single and triple, and the water is inexhaustible.

The two crystals (314-15) vs the carbuncle (316). The light from the former comes from elsewhere; the latter has three facets that are co-equal, and illuminates the park (316-17). Those who contemplate it “are always able to see, and rightly to understand, all the things in the park and themselves as well” (316)

Douce 195, 146r

The two gardens (307-317)

Pine tree vs olive. Inscription: “Here runs the spring of life, beneath the leafy olive that bears the fruit of salvation” (316)

The garden of Eden was not so fair as this park (317)

Where are we?

Morgan 948, 196r

The Sermon of Genius

The judgement of the God of Love’s army (317)

Genius’s commandments (317)

The sermon brings joy and solace, and no worthy man ever disagreed with it (318)

Those who approve note it in their hearts (319)

Genius disappears

A Recall of the whole Rose

God fashioned the tools with his own hand, 302 (Reason and coilles)

Deeds and words, 307 (False Seeming)

Flowers like maidens, 307

The reign of Saturn, 308 (Reason)

The summum bonum – delight (not wealth, knowledge, love)

Death of Narcissus, 314 (Pygmalion)

Garden vs park (Guillaume)

Genius’s commandments, 317 (God of Love’s commandments)

Comme Venus et les barons de l’ost assaillent la tour du chastel, BnF 24392, 166v

Metaphors and comparisons

The loophole in the tower (320) between two pillars, supporting a silver image instead of a reliquary, within which is a sanctuary (321)

This image : Pygmalion’s image :: lion : mouse (321)

Arsenal5209, 141v Ludwig XV 7, 129v

Pygmalion (321-327)

More fair than Helen and Lavinia (321)

His love is unnatural (321) and foolish (but not as foolish as Narcissus’s) (322)

P dresses his statue (323)

P pretends to wed his statue (324)

P plays instruments for and dances with his statue (324)

P takes his statue to bed (324)

P prays to Venus (325), who gives his statue a soul

BnF 380, 132v

Ludwig XV 7, 130 BnF 24392, 168r

Pygmalion (321-327)

Dreaming? (321; 326)

Reciprocal and fecund love (326)

Paphus, Cinyras, Myrrha, Adonis“… but I am too far from my subject…” (327)

Morgan 948, 199v

Douce 195, 150 r&v

Comment Venus embrasele chastel

BnF 380, 135v

Ci est come Venus embraze le chastelet coment elle trait le feu pour ardoirceulz de dedans

Smith Lesouef 62, 136v

Arsenal 5209, 171v

Metaphors and comparisons

“I have a different furrow to plough” (327)

Mice and lions

The image is between pillars in the tower (327)

The Lover would like to adore the image, together with the reliquary and the aperture (327)

Lover as pilgrim (329) with a scrip, staff, and hammers [Nature is a better forger than Daedalus]. He wants to worship at the shrine (332)

Old roads and new pathways (330)

The fowler (331)

Jousting (333); the trials of Hercules (333)

Scattering of seed (334)

Fair Welcome and the rose, or, theft, gifts, and exchangeVenus enjoins Fair Welcome to accept the Lover’s offer and give him the rose (328-29)

“Young sirs … you will at least have the advantage of my having taught you my technique without taking any of your money” (334)

FW – no violence; Lover – nothing that is not his will and my own

FW’s ambivalent reaction (334)

Lover as “good debtor” (335)

Comme lamantembrassa le rosier et eslocha le boutonArsenal 5209, 175r

The key to reading?

Ainsinc va des contreres choses,

les unes sunt des autres gloses;

et qui l’une an veust defenir,

de l’autre li doit souvenir,

ou ja, par nul antancion,

n’i metra diffinicion

Thus it goes with contrary things

The ones gloss the others

And whoever wishes to define the one

Should remember the other

Or never, by any intention/application

Will he be able to establish a definition/distinction there

And then it was day and I awoke.

My Rose take-aways:How to be a reader (memory, skepticism, judgement)

Poetry as a site that enables (requires?) intellectual development and critical thinking, but also as a source of beauty, wonder, delight.

The poet as ultimate creator/artist.