This volume gathers the epistles and documents of the celebrated medieval debate over the Romance of the Rose, the enormously popular allegorical poem of courtly love. The controversy, which engaged Christine de Pizan, Jean Gerson, and others around 1400, concerned the poem’s treatment of women, morality, and love. Edited by Charles Frederick Ward, the collection assembles the letters and writings exchanged in one of the first great literary debates in European history.
The texts, largely in medieval French, illuminate a pivotal moment in literary and intellectual history, when Christine de Pizan emerged as an eloquent defender of women against the misogyny some found in the poem. The debate offers rare insight into medieval ideas of literature, gender, and morality. Note that this edition is chiefly in French.