United States or Namibia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


The Romaunt of the Rose, is a translation from the French: this poem was begun by William de Lerris, and continued by John de Meun, both famous French poets; it seems to have been translated about the time of the rise of Wickliffe's Opinions, it consisting of violent invectives against religious orders.

The romaunt, which is half Arabian in its origin, was at first a simple heroic tale; afterwards it became a very artificial species, adapted to various uses, but in which the picturesque ingredient always predominated even to the most brilliant luxuriance of colouring.

Thus Gower's book, as he says at its close, stands "between earnest and game," and might be fairly described as a "Romaunt of the Rose," without either the descriptive grace of Guillaume de Lorris, or the wicked wit of Jean de Meung, but full of learning and matter, and written by an author certainly not devoid of the art of telling stories.

During his first period, he studied French models. He learned much from his partial translation of the popular French Romaunt of the Rose. The best poem of his French period is Dethe of Blanche the Duchesse, a tribute to the wife of John of Gaunt, the son of Edward III. Chaucer's journey to Italy next turned his attention to Italian models.

And, sure enough, there was Kennedy, with rueful face and a maudlin romaunt about a moonlit meeting with a swarm of painted Sioux, over which the stable guard were making merry and stirring the trooper's soul to wrath ungovernable. "I can prove ut," he howled, to the accompaniment of clinching fists and bellicose lunges at the laughing tormentors nearest him.

She turned to Holmes, when he had finished, fixing her light, confusing eyes on his face, and softening her voice. "Fred swears that woman we passed was your first love. Were you, then, so chivalric? Was it to have been a second romaunt of 'King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid?" He met her look, and saw the fierce demand through the softness and persiflage.

Oh that eyes had been left me to note how she pined away! but I had scarce felt how thin and bony were her tender fingers ere the blasts of the cruel March wind finished the work." "Alack! alack! poor Henry," said Richard; "never, never was lady of romaunt so noble, and so true!" "No more," said Henry hastily, leaning his brow on the top of his staff.

Some of his Canterbury Tales were written earlier than the English period, and were only grouped with the others in his final arrangement. The best known, though not the best, poem of the first period is the Romaunt of the Rose, a translation from the French Roman de la Rose, the most popular poem of the Middle Ages, a graceful but exceedingly tiresome allegory of the whole course of love.

Knights, squires, wizards, hamadryads, satyrs, and river gods, Idleness, Gluttony, and Superstition jostle each other in Spenser's fairy land. Descents to the infernal shades, in the manner of Homer and Vergil, alternate with descriptions of the Palace of Pride in the manner of the Romaunt of the Rose.

"Upon my soul, brother," interrupted my uncle Gervase, removing the pipe from his mouth, "this reads like a direction for the taking of Corsica." "Alway be merry if thou may, But waste not thy good alway: Have hat of floures fresh as May, Chapelet of roses of Whitsonday For sich array ne costneth but lyte." Romaunt of the Rose. Somerset.