RONDEAU
(13th c.: rondet or rondel). A popular dance form of the 13th and 14th centuries and one
of the formes fixes of the late 14th and 15th. The name perhaps derives from a round
dance. The simplest fully developed form comprises eight lines in the pattern
ABaAabAB, in which capital letters indicate the two refrain verses and lower-case letters
are new text with the same rhyme scheme and syllable count as the corresponding refrain
lines (musical settings have two sections that repeat as necessary, one for the A-sections
and the other for the B-sections). Unlike the carole, and the later ballade and virelai, the
rondeau refrain is partially repeated within the stanza. In the 15th century, rondeaux were
enormously popular, with refrains three, four, or five lines long. How much of these long
refrains recurred after the opening is still debated.
Lawrence Earp
[See also: FORMES FIXES; REFRAIN]
Bec, Pierre. La lyrique française au moyen-âge (XIIe-XIIIe siècles): contribution a une typologie
des genres poétiques médiévaux. 2 vols. Paris: Picard, 1977.
Boogaard, Nico van den. Rondeaux et refrains du XIIe siècle au début du XIVe. Paris: Klincksieck,
1969.
Cerquiglini, Jacqueline. “Le rondeau.” In La littérature française aux XIVe et XVe siècles.
Heidelberg: Winter, 1988, Vol. 1: Partie historique, ed. Daniel Poirion, pp. 45–58.
ROSE, ROMAN DE LA
. Allegorical poem composed in the course of the 13th century by Guillaume de Lorris
and Jean de Meun. For a description of the poem, see the articles under the names of its
two authors; for an account of the literary debate occasioned by the Rose, see the article
under QUARREL. The response to the Rose in the 14th and 15th centuries was
phenomenal. It survives in over 250 manuscripts, more than exist for any other work of
Old or Middle French literature. Most of these manuscripts are illuminated, many
lavishly. Most are also equipped with extensive rubrics, occasionally in rhymed couplets,
that chart the thematic and narrative structure of the poem. Some manuscripts, perhaps
one-tenth of the surviving corpus, have marginal glosses and annotations added by
medieval readers; a great many more have had memorable lines identified with the
inscription Nota. These annotations are invaluable in assessing the interests of medieval
readers of the Rose. Reactions to the poem can also be gauged from the numerous literary
responses and rewritings that it generated. These in turn range from interpolated passages
to extensive revisions and reworkings of the text to the composition of entirely new texts.
Finally, the influence of the Rose spread well beyond France: by the end of the 14th
century, it had been translated into Italian, Dutch, and English.
The number of miniatures varies considerably from one manuscript to another,
ranging from none at all to well over a hundred. Most manuscripts have at least one
miniature representing the Dreamer in bed at the beginning of the poem. Many begin
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 1550