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The ‘Roman de la Rose' and Thirteenth-Century Thought

The ‘Roman de la Rose' and Thirteenth-Century Thought

The ‘Roman de la Rose' and Thirteenth-Century Thought

Jonathan Morton, Tulane University, Louisiana
Marco Nievergelt, University of Warwick
John Marenbon
July 2020
Available
Hardback
9781108425704

    The thirteenth-century allegorical dream vision, the Roman de la Rose, transformed how medieval literary texts engaged with philosophical ideas. Written in Old French, its influence dominated French, English and Italian literature for the next two centuries, serving in particular as a model for Chaucer and Dante. Jean de Meun's section of this extensive, complex and dazzling work is notable for its sophisticated responses to a whole host of contemporary philosophical debates. This collection brings together literary scholars and historians of philosophy to produce the most thorough, interdisciplinary study to date of how the Rose uses poetry to articulate philosophical problems and positions. This wide-ranging collection demonstrates the importance of the poem for medieval intellectual history and offers new insights into the philosophical potential both of the Rose specifically and of medieval poetry as a whole.

    • Offers a multi-faceted and in-depth approach to studying the Roman de la Rose, accommodating the latest scholarship
    • The strong focus on intellectual history in the volume brings a new intellectual rigour to scholarship on the Roman de la Rose, reconsidering the relationship between literature and philosophy
    • Addresses the relationship between the poem and thirteenth-century scholasticism, relevant for both literature specialists and historians of philosophy

    Reviews & endorsements

    'This collection of articles will provide students and scholars with useful insights into the philosophical thoughts which informed [the Roman's] composition.’ Christine McWebb, Speculum

    See more reviews

    Product details

    July 2020
    Hardback
    9781108425704
    344 pages
    236 × 158 × 25 mm
    0.65kg
    Available

    Table of Contents

    • Part I. Epistemology and Language:
    • 1. The mechanisms of belief: Jean de Meun's implicit epistemology Christophe Grellard (translated by Jonathan Morton and Marco Nievergelt)
    • 2. Visual experiences and allegorical fiction: the lexis and paradigm of fantasie in Jean de Meun's Roman de la Rose Fabienne Pomel (translated by Jonathan Morton and Marco Nievergelt)
    • 3. Imposition, equivocation, and intention: language and signification in Jean de Meun's Roman de la Rose and thirteenth-century grammar and logic Marco Nievergelt
    • 4. Sophisms and sophistry in the Roman de la Rose Jonathan Morton
    • Part II. Natural Law, Politics, and Society:
    • 5. The personal and the political: love and society in the Roman de la Rose Juhana Toivanen
    • 6. Human nature and the natural law in Jean de Meun's Roman de la Rose Philip Knox
    • 7. A politico-communal re-reading of the Rose: the Fiore Attributed to Dante Alighieri Antonio Montefusco (translated by Jonathan Morton and Marco Nievergelt)
    • Part III. Unfinished Business: Forms of Writing, Forms of Knowledge:
    • 8. Jean de Meun, Boethius, and thirteenth-century philosophy John Marenbon
    • 9. The romance of the non-rose: echoes and subversions of negative theology in Jean de Meun's Roman de la Rose Alice Lamy (translated by Jonathan Morton and Marco Nievergelt)
    • 10. Metalepsis and allegory: the unity of the Roman de la Rose Luciano Rossi (translated by Jonathan Morton and Marco Nievergelt).
      Contributors
    • Christophe Grellard, Jonathan Morton, Marco Nievergelt, Fabienne Pomel, Marco Nievergelt, Jonathan Morton, Juhana Toivanen, Philip Knox, Antonio Montefusco, John Marenbon, Alice Lamy, Luciano Rossi

    • Editors
    • Jonathan Morton , Tulane University, Louisiana

      Jonathan Morton is an Assistant Professor in the French and Italian Department at Tulane University and an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin. He is the author of The 'Roman de la rose' in its Philosophical Context: Art, Nature, and Ethics (2018) and is working on a monograph on the medieval technological imaginary.

    • Marco Nievergelt , University of Warwick

      Marco Nievergelt is a Senior Teaching Fellow in English at the University of Warwick. He is the author of Allegorical Quests from Deguileville to Spenser (2012) and is working on a project entitled Medieval Allegory as Epistemology: Dream-Vision Poetry on Language, Cognition, and Experience.

    • John Marenbon