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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