MCWEBB, Christine (ed.), Debating the Roman de La Rose. A Critical Anthology, New York, Routledge (Medieval Text Series), 2007, 448 pp.
ISBN: 9780415967655
Christine McWebb’s new critical anthology (Debating the Roman de la Rose, Routledge, 2007) is an extraordinary vista on the effervescence and true vitality of intellectual life in medieval Europe. Her book, with an introduction by Earl Jeffrey Richards, is a compilation in both French and English of the many commentaries and epistolary exchanges that surrounded the Roman de la Rose in the last part of the Middle Ages. “My aim, she writes in her introduction, is to make these texts available to a wider audience, while lifting the medieval Debate from its narrow domain.” With 300 manuscripts in existence, the elaborate Roman de la Rose (21,000 verses in total!) is undoubtedly one of the most influential texts of medieval French literature. The book, written between 1236 and 1278 by two successive authors, Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, triggered a stunning debate about a variety of issues ranging from the role of women, marriage, mendacity, courtly behaviour, theology, love, chivalry and alchemy. The Roman de la Rose quickly became the “emblem of French cultural supremacy in the 14th and early 15th centuries.” In her concluding chapters, Prof. McWebb focuses on Christine de Pizan’s Epistles and on Le livre de la Cité des Dames, representing the ultimate efforts by the 15th century writer to refute Jean de Meun’s propositions in the Roman de la Rose.