dream visions. Guilhem’s verse often uses long lines
of eleven, twelve, or fourteen syllables (with internal
rhyme)—lines seldom used by later troubadours. Stud-
ies of his verse forms suggest connections with Latin
poetry, the liturgy, the popular round dance, and even
epic measures. A fragment of his music is preserved as
a contrafactum in the 14th-century Jeu de sainte Agnès;
though doubtless adapted, it shows the melody’s fi liation
with monastic music.
See also Eleanor of Aquitaine
Further Reading
Guilhem IX. The Poetry of William VII, Count of Poitiers, IX
Duke of Aquitaine, ed. and trans. Gerald A. Bond. New York:
Garland, 1982.
——. Guglielmo IX: poesie, ed. Nicolo Pasero. Modena: Muc-
chi, 1973.
Bezzola, Reto R. “Guillaume IX et les origines de 1’amour
courtois.” Romania 66 (1940): 145–237.
Amelia E. Van Vleck
GUILLAUME DE LORRIS (fl. 1220–40)
The Roman de la Rose of Guillaume de Lorris, a poem
of 4,028 lines thought to have been written ca. 1225–40,
has always been linked to jean de Meun’s Roman de
la Rose, a poem more than four times the length of
Guillaume’s and written as its continuation. It is in Jean’s
poem that the reader learns the names of the authors of
the two works and the fact that Guillaume died before
completing his roman, which he had written some forty
years earlier.
Although jean de Meun’s roman became one of
the most popular works of the Middle Ages, read and
cited extensively through the Renaissance and existing
in more than 250 manuscripts, Guillaume de Lorris’s
unfi nished poem has captured the imagination of the
post-18th-century reading public and remains a source
of lively critical debate.
In a prologue of twenty lines, the author discusses
the importance of dreams (with a reference to Macro-
bius) and establishes the dream narrative of the text
itself. In the narrative proper, set in. springtime, the
dreamer discovers an enclosed garden. On the wall
of the garden are portrayed Hate, Felony, Baseness,
Covetousness, Avarice, Envy, Sadness, Old Age, Hy-
pocrisy, and Poverty—all characters excluded from the
inside of the garden. The Dreamer enters through the
only gate, guarded by Idleness, a beautiful lady whose
day is spent fi xing her hair and face. Inside the garden,
the Dreamer meets Merriment and his friends Beauty,
Wealth, Generosity, Nobility, Courtesy, and Youth. As
the Dreamer makes a tour of the garden, he is stalked
by the God of Love and overcome at the Fountain of
Narcissus, a spring at the center of the garden whose
two brilliant crystals allow one to see all things in the
garden. While looking into the crystals, the Dreamer
sees a rose, falls in love, and becomes the Lover. The
God of Love now takes his new vassal in charge and
instructs him carefully in the art of love. The Lover
makes an attempt to approach the Rose but is repulsed
by Resistance, the fi gure in charge of the Rose and the
precincts within the hedge around her. Dejected by his
failure and miserable from the pains of love, the rejected
Lover is approached by Reason, described in Boethian
terms as a lady of such lineage that she must have come
from Paradise, as Nature would not have been able to
make a work of such dimension. Reason reproaches the
Lover for his foolishness in becoming acquainted with
Idleness and explains that the evil he calls love is really
madness. Is it wise or foolish to follow what causes you
to live in grief, she asks? The Lover reacts angrily to
Reason’s advice, arguing that it would not be right for
him to betray his lord, Love.
The Lover then seeks consolation from a Friend,
who advises him that, though Resistance is angry at
the moment, he can be overcome by fl attery. With the
aid of Openness and Pity, who plead for mercy on the
Lover’s behalf, the Lover once again gains access to
Fair Welcome, who is persuaded to allow him to draw
ever nearer the Rose, fi nally bestowing a kiss. Outraged,
Slander arouses Jealousy; Shame, and Fear go to awaken
the sleeping Resistance. Angry that he has been duped,
Resistance chases the Lover from the Rose, and Jeal-
ousy builds a prison to keep Fair Welcome locked up.
The Lover laments his misery and stresses that he is
worse off now than he was before. The poet returns to
the contrasting theme of the brevity of love’s pleasures
and the eternity of grief that follows. The Lover evokes
the Wheel of Fortune, comparing Love’s treatment of
him to Fortune’s own behavior. In the midst of further
lamenting, the poem breaks off.
From the beginning, the reader of the Roman de la
Rose is faced with diffi culties in understanding Guillau-
me’s poem. The dream-allegory setting implies multiple
levels of meaning, in the medieval sense of allegory as
saying one thing and meaning another. Macrobius’s
Commentary on the Dream of Scipio demonstrates the
medieval concern for the dream and its relationship to
other orders of reality. Moreover, the narrator is not
merely the author but also the Dreamer and Lover, who
operates in an objective world of personifi cations. Or
are the personifi cations merely devices for the psycho-
logical description of the Lover and the Rose? In this
question lies one of the most diffi cult medieval problems
concerning the understanding of character and personal-
ity. But beyond these questions of form and meaning
lie questions raised by the narrative itself. What is this
garden the Lover enters—a kind of paradise involvingGUILLAUME DE LORRIS