Romance of the Rose and the Making of Fourteenth-Century English Literature

The Romance of the Rose had a transformative effect on the multilingual literary culture of fourteenth-century England, leaving more material evidence for late medieval English-speaking readers than any other vernacular literary work from mainland Europe. This book examines its decisive effect on English literature of the fourteenth century, and new literary experiments it provoked from writers such as Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, William Langland, and theauthor of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Linking the English afterlife of the Rose to a host of ongoing cultural developments in mainland Europe, The Romance of the Rose and the Making of Fourteenth-Century English Literature reveals the deep interconnectedness of English and European literary culture.Examining courtly, clerical, and classicising orientations towards the text, it presents new arguments for the place of the Rose at the centre of fourteenth-century English literature, and explores its rich manuscript history to reveal new evidence about the cultural significance of this love allegory from thirteenth-century France. The chapters avoid an author-centred approach, arranging readings of the Rose and its relation with English literature in constellations thatreveal complex unfolding inter-relation of the diverse readings of the Rose that took place in fourteenth-century England.

The book offers insights on writers such as Jean de Meun, Chaucer, Gower, Christine de Pizan, and William Langland. Readings of the text are organized in groupings that demonstrate the ongoing interrelation of the many interpretations that arose in England in the 14th century., The Rose, it is suggested, 'has been so difficult to describe in modern criticism' because of its 'multiplicity, and the colliding-together of different reading practices that it produced'. Knox has coped with that difficulty superbly well, producing literary criticism of the highest order. Densely written, intellectually sparkling and always absorbing, this is an exceptional book which frequently achieves brilliance.

Philip Knox is a University Lecturer in Medieval English Literature at the University of Cambridge, and a fellow of King's College. He is one of the editors of New Medieval Literatures.