Le roman de la rose

Marot; but even as our Homer. He was the model for all our ancient Poets: and Regnier himself, one of our most skillful Satirists, whom Despreaux Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, a famous French poet and critic. always kept before his eyes; Regnier, I say, did not hesitate to imitate this Romance in his Macette, which is without dispute the most beautiful and brilliant of his Satires, though it is too licentious. And what is very glorious for this Romance, and perhaps hardly so for * Binet, Life of Ronsard. Ronsard*, is that the latter always had this antique versifier in his hands.

The taste for our ancient Poets, which has been renewed for some time now, has led to the reprinting of several of them. One should have started with this one; it is not in truth the first, but it is like the head of our ancient Poetry. Without it, one cannot exactly know the beauties or the singularities of the Poets of the 14th, 15th, and even the 16th century.

Guillaume de Lorris begins the Romance.

Guillaume de Lorris, who first undertook this Romance, was from the small town in Gâtinais whose name he bore. He lived in the middle of the 13th century and died likely in 1260 or 1262, as will soon be seen. His work, of which he only composed the first 4,150 verses, shows the facility of his mind. One finds there not only an easy versification, but also, considering the time, a beautiful and wisely varied imagination; one sees there sentiments, manners, and reflections. One must not imagine, however, that one will find that elevation, that enthusiasm, and that refinement that the 16th century attempted to re-establish in French Poetry in imitation of the ancients, and the perfection of which is only due to the 17th century. One will see here a simpler and smoother elocution: it is even a uniformity that closely approaches monotony. But this must be forgiven in favor of the character of the century, whose simplicity