Jean De Meun :: Essays Papers

Jean De Meun Jean de Meun, a French poet, was natural in 1240 in Meung-sur-Loire and died in Paris around 1305. Some sources press out that the name Clopinel comes from the fact that he was lame while others claim that it was his run low name. Jean was a member of the bourgeois class, educated at the University of Paris, a Christian, and an admirer of Latin authors such(prenominal) as Cicero. He had knowledge of several(prenominal) languages and this is noted by the fact that he translated The Consolation of Philosophy into gothic French. Other than these facts, little is know about his life. His works were satirical and representative and influenced later authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer. Jean is most famously known for his work on the allegorical, 21,750-line poem, The Roman de la blush wine (Romance of the Rose). This poem was started by Guillaume de Lorris in 1225 and completed by Jean de Meun quartet decades later. Lorris wrote roughly four thousand verses bef ore his death and Jean added both(prenominal) 18,000 lines afterwards. This poem is considered to be the most important work to come from middle-aged French literary tradition and it enjoyed a considerable amount of supremacy among medieval scholars, with over two hundred manuscripts made of it at that time. However, scholars like a shot have a hard time understanding the true import of the poem. The Romance of the Rose was translated into Italian, Dutch, and English by the late fourteenth century, a marvel for a literary work of that time period. Jean strove to acquit to the nobility ideas of courtly love and other medieval ideas and as a result, his work converted the poem into a medium to communicate topics and ideas that would enthral his readers. The text contains topics ranging from classical heroes and theories on astronomy, to the importance of the middle class and problems such as greed. Some of these topics created controversy, but nonetheless held the read ers interest. In the poem, Jean tries to dissuade the lover, but the god of Love later reproaches the lover or contribute an ear to Reason. In the course of the lovers turmoil he has occasion to reflect, among other things, that possessions are burdens, that charity and justice are by no style equal, that power and virtue never go together, and that, even in destroying, temperament carries on her struggle against death.