Magister Amoris: The 'Roman de la Rose' and Vernacular Hermeneutics by Alastair Minnis

Abstract

MLR, 98.2, 2003 455 the impact ofthe article at the end with an over-hasty and sketchy examination of other female characters. Donald Maddox concentrates his attention upon the Bel Inconnu and upon the 'Fier Baiser' theme in particular. Of special note is the exploration of the significance of the heraldic emblems contained in the text, where Maddox's persistence has brought important results. Sara Sturm-Maddox is concerned with the fortunes of the Arthurian tradition in Sicily and more specifically with Floriant et Florete, and tries to tease out the meaning ofthe end of the verse romance. The article not so far mentioned is a study by Louis Gemenne, which describes an experiment centred on the reading of Marie de France's Bisclavret by a group of mainly 16-yearold pupils in a Belgian school. This essay perhaps illustrates the strengthand weakness of the whole collection: it has its own interest, but does not relate to or genuinely invite reflection on the other contributions. The Arthurian theme suggested by the title loosely covers all the essays printed here, the individual contributions are all worthy in their differentways, but the collection remains a miscellany, lacking a truly distinctive theme which would have increased the resonances of its separate parts. University of Durham Geoffrey Bromiley Magister Amoris: The 'Roman de la Rose' and Vernacular Hermeneutics. By Alastair Minnis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2001. xv + 352pp. ?50. ISBN o19 -818754-8 With this book Alastair Minnis makes another substantial contribution to the study of medieval concepts of authorship and literaryhermeneutics. This detailed examination of the reception of the Roman de la Rose in the later Middle Ages situates the Rose and the diverse reactions it provoked in the context of medieval theories of language and meaning and the study of erotic and satiric literature, particularly the works of Ovid. Minnis stresses Ovid's importance as a learned poet of love, a magister amoris, whose literary oeuvre comprises seemingly contradictory elements. Works attributed to Ovid during the Middle Ages, the Amores, the Ars amatoria, the Remedia amoris, and the De vetula, as well as the Metamorphoses, variously incite the reader to erotic love, instruct him or her in how to proceed, warn against its dangers, and portray it as a moral pitfall to be avoided at all cost. The complexities and ambiguities of Ovid's love poetry stimulated a lively commentary tradition that was already well developed by the time of Jean de Meun's continuation of the Roman de la Rose. Minnis shows that medieval readings of the Rose must be read in the larger context of medieval literary studies in general, and in particular with reference to the reception of Ovid. As Minnis states with regard to the celebrated querelle initiated by Christine de Pizan, Jean de Meun was widely viewed as a medieval vernacular Ovid; the question was whether the Rose should be read as an art or a remedy of love. In his analysis of the Rose and the controversies that itaroused, Minnis explores the poem's unstable mix of competing discourses: the use of integumentumor decorous concealment of harsh and obscene material on the one hand, and on the other the 'naked truth' of satire, in which all is bared foran effectthat is both comic and didactic . It is the very instability and inconsistency of the Rose, a masterful and brilliant inconsistency, that accounts both forthe fascination with which it gripped its readers and forthe horror with which some of them reacted. Minnis shows that Jean's critics and his defenders alike drew on scholastic commentary traditions, differingonly in their means of applying these techniques to the Rose. Thus for some it was a bold satire, and for others a shameful treatise on seduction. Minnis's own view is that Jean's humour in the Rose is not subversive but utterly mainstream. Its comedy derives from a perspective that completely accepts the 456 Reviews dominant culture while none the less seeing and perhaps even revelling in its inter? nal tensions, paradoxes, and absurdities. Minnis points out that a paradox central to medieval education, in which Ovidian love poetry played a prominent role, was that boys were simultaneously...