The Romaunt of the Rose

The Romaunt of the Rose (the Romaunt) is a partial translation into Middle English of the French allegorical poem, le Roman de la Rose (le Roman). Originally believed to be the work of Chaucer, the Romaunt inspired controversy among 19th-century scholars when parts of the text were found to differ in style from Chaucer's other works. Also the text was found to contain three distinct fragments of translation. Together, the fragments—A, B, and C--provide a translation of approximately one-third of Le Roman.

There is little doubt that Chaucer did translate Le Roman de la Rose under the title The Romaunt of the Rose: in The Legend of Good Women, the narrator, Chaucer, states as much. The question is whether the surviving text is the same one that Chaucer wrote. The authorship question has been a topic of research and controversy. As such, scholarly discussion of the Romaunt has tended toward linguistic rather than literary analysis.

Scholars today generally agree that only fragment A is attributable to Chaucer, although fragment C closely resembles Chaucer's style in language and manner. Fragment C differs mainly in the way that rhymes are constructed. And where fragments A and C adhere to a London dialect of the 1370s, Fragment B contains forms characteristic of a northern dialect.

Guillaume de Lorris completed the first 4058 lines of le Roman de la Rose circa 1230. Written in Old French, in octosyllabic, iambic tetrameter couplets, the poem was an allegory of courtly love. About 40 years later, Jean de Meun continued the poem with 17,724 additional lines. In contrasting the two poets, C.S. Lewis noted that Lorris' allegory focused on aspects of love and supplied a subjective element to the literature, but Meun's work was less allegory and more satire. Lewis believed that Meun provided little more than a lengthy series of digressions.

Geoffrey Chaucer began translating Le Roman into Middle English early in his career, perhaps in the 1360s. Chaucer may have selected this particular work because it was highly popular both among Parisians and among French-speaking nobles in England. He might have intended to introduce the poem to an English audience as a way of revising or extending written English. Moreover, Le Roman was controversial in its treatment of women and sex, especially in the verses written by Meun. Chaucer may even have believed that English literature would benefit from this variety of literature.

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