remaniement and the only one that is not anonymous is that executed by Gui de Mori in
the late 13th century. Gui suppressed allusions to pagan mythology, added considerable
didactic material, and attempted to replace the ring structure that characterizes several of
Jean de Meun’s major discourses with a linear progression. Another important
remaniement is that designated by Langlois as the B text, which survives in several
recensions. The B remanieur in general sought to recast Jean de Meun’s continuation in
the more courtly framework of Guillaume de Lorris, suppressing in part or in whole both
philosophical digressions and bawdy or satirical passages. But while these are the two
most important and most widely diffused remaniements, the manuscript tradition contains
other examples of both abridgment and interpolation, sometimes considerable. Among
the passages most frequently rewritten are Reason’s defense of plain speech, the
discourse of False Seeming, and the discourse of Genius; but every part of the poem
shows at least some variation.
Literary responses to the Rose are many and varied. Few medieval poets attempted to
match the scope of the Rose, but a great many adopted aspects of it, such as first-person
narrative, the dream-vision format, the garden setting, or mythological and allegorical
characters and motifs. The most explicit imitation of the Rose is the late 14th-century
Échecs amoureux. Evrart de Conty’s voluminous prose commentary on the Échecs (ca.
1400) cites the Rose repeatedly and is one of the most important sources for late-
medieval readings of that poem. Poets as diverse as Nicole de Margival, Guillaume de
Digulleville, Christine de Pizan, René d’Anjou, and François Villon also cite the Rose
explicitly. Guillaume de Machaut and Jean Froissart were profoundly influenced by it.
Indeed, it would be impossible to imagine Middle French literature without the Rose.
The Rose continued to be popular well into the Renaissance. It went through several
printed editions in the 15th century and, in the modernization attributed to Clément
Marot, was printed several times in the 16th century as well. Jean Molinet’s prose
redaction, accompanied by an idiosyncratic reading of the text as sacred allegory, was
also printed in the 16th century.
Sylvia Huot
[See also: ÉCHECS AMOUREUX.; GUI DE MORI; GUILLAUME DE LORRIS;
JEAN DE MEUN; MOLINET, JEAN; QUARREL OF THE ROMAN DE LA ROSE]
Arden, Heather M. The Roman de la Rose: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1993.
Badel, Pierre-Yves. Le roman de la Rose au XIVe siècle: étude de la réception de l’œuvre. Geneva:
Droz, 1980.
Bourdillon, Francis W. The Early Éditions of the Roman de la Rose. London: Chiswick, 1906.
Huot, Sylvia. The Romance of the Rose and Its Medieval Readers: Interpretation, Reception,
Manuscript Transmission. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Langlois, Ernest. Les manuscrits du Roman de la Rose: description et classement. Paris: Champion,
1910.
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