Genève, Bibliothèque de Genève, Ms. fr. 178 : Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, Le Roman de la Rose. Jean de Meun, Le Testament

The Roman de la Rose is a poetic work of approximately 22,000 octosyllabic verses. The first part of this allegorial romance (over 4,000 verses) was written by Guillaume de Lorris in about 1230, and it was completed by Jean de Meun some forty years later. Although the work was originally conceived as a courtly tale, the second part disgresses on a wide variety of themes and expressly criticizes th…