Roman de la Rose, Le

Roman de la Rose, Le (The Romance of the Rose), medieval French poem, a dream allegory based on the courtly love tradition. The poem, written in Middle French and probably begun about 1235, contains 22,000 lines and is structured in rhymed couplets. More than 300 manuscript versions of the work are extant. The author of the first 4000 lines was Guillaume de Lorris. This section recounts the poet's love for a young woman who is symbolized, in his dream, as a rosebud in a garden that represents courtly life. The lover experiences a succession of despairs and hopes, but is unable to consummate his devotion. The remainder of the poem is by Jean de Meun (or Meung; c. 1240-1305); it was composed later and is much different in spirit. The second poet continued the dream allegory, but used the poem as a vehicle to convey a vast store of information about medieval life and thought. Despite these digressions, the poem was extremely popular and influential in France as well as in England, where Geoffrey Chaucer translated about one-third of it.