Since the Roman de la Rose had tremendous influence on the poetry of
the fourteenth century, particularly on the works of Deschamps, Machaut,
Froissart, and Chaucer, Professor Fleming maintains that it is important
for the modern reader to understand what this influential moral satire
meant to readers of the medieval period. Basing his interpretation in
part on iconographic analysis of the illuminations found in more than
one hundred manuscript copies of the poem, he advances a "medieval"
reading of the poem. Other tools used by Mr. Fleming to get at the
meaning of the poem include a study of the mythographic tradition, a
logical and rhetorical analysis of the text, and an examination of
formal exegetical documents of the late Middle Ages, especially the Old
French commentary on the Echecs Amoureux.
Originally published in 1969.
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