The Romance Of The Rose Analysis

The Romance of the Rose was one of the most popular late medieval texts, it was very widely distributed. However, if all of the other sources for that time period disappeared or were never found, the story could tell us much about the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. By thoroughly reading the text one can glean that during the time this text was widespread the pursual of a mate was extremely important, both for inheritance practices and for additional satisfaction. Additionally, one can tell from the text that there was tension between the laity and the religious orders and that the people of the time had access to Greek and Roman texts as well as ready access to the Bible. One of the first details of the high Middle Ages we …show more content…
Lucretia killed herself after being raped by Tarquinas’ son. De Meun’s point was that Lucretia if properly solicited would have wanted a man to love her, even though she killed herself because a man improperly assailed her. Finally, the story of Sampson and Delilah, where Deliah cut off Sampson’s hair, which made him invincible, and betrayed him is recounted when De Meun is discussing how men should not tell their wives all of their secrets or be betrayed by them and their …show more content…
Examples are meant to help illustrate the points an author is making, if De Lorris and De Meun were using examples, they would be from the common literature and stories of the time. The audience the Rose was written for would be considered to be literate, and thus able to read the stories or at least know of them when this book was first published. This supports the idea that if the only text we had from the high Middle Ages was The Romance of the Rose, we could tell that they had access to texts and stories from Greece and Rome and that people also had ready access to religious texts, such as the Bible. Overall, if we use The Romance of the Rose as a “mirror of the Middle Ages” we can still understand a lot about the time period the text was written in through the characters’ references and the social norms that are discussed throughout the book. It is apparent that the pursual of a mate was extremely important, a tension existed between the laity and the Church, and Greek, Roman and religious texts were readily available to the public during the high Middle Ages and that they were as widely read as The Romance of the