The Art of Love in Romance of the Rose - Essay Example

The art of love in Romance of the Rose

Guillaume de Lorris’ poem, Romance of the Rose, is a suggestive tale of a lover’s relentless pursuit of erotic desire within a courtship system that is biased towards romantic love as opposed to the former. The poem is fundamentally structured as a metaphorical dream vision, and it narrates the story of a dreamer that encounters a rose and strongly desires it while wandering in the garden. The whole poem revolves around the defeat of the lover’s erotic desire under the compulsion of the god of love; the rose could be regarded as a symbol of prohibited sexual desires. This essay will specifically explore the god of love’s teaching to the lover with respect to the art of love and the extent to which the lover comprehends this teaching. Moreover, this essay will also discuss how the last part of de Lorris’ poem shows the lover’s comprehension of the god’s teaching. Given that courtly love demands both distance and restraint, the lover is compelled to defeat his sensual desire by yielding to the domineering force of the love god.

The love god tries to teach the lover the art of courtly or romantic love, as opposed to erotic desires for the woman; the instant the lover sights the rose, he is overcome by desire for the rose, and this attracts the intervention of the god of love. The god of love shoots and assaults the lover several times by his bow and arrows, the instant he expresses his desire for the rose. The god of love constantly watches over the lover and intervenes forcefully to avert the lover’s erotic desires; for instance, the lover says that when the love god noticed he had identified one of the most attractive rosebuds, he drew his arrow and shot at him (De Lorris and Jean 54). The rose is herein portrayed as a sexualized image, of female sexuality, which is meant to be desired and seduced by the man; in that case, the label “rose” no longer refers to a beloved woman, who deserves to be loved truly by the man. The hyper sexualized image of the rose portrayed in the poem subverts the traditional expectations of courtship love and becomes a symbol of the erotic. For instance, the description of buds clearly sexualizes the rose; the lover says that there were “small” and “tight” buds, and others of all sorts of sizes, which were “ready to open” (De Lorris and Jean 52). This clearly sexually laden description of the buds is indicative of the lover’s erotic desire, which is immediately in opposition to the realization of courtly love. In other words, whereas the lover aspires towards the realization of romantic love as is expected of him under the confines of the Medieval French courtship system, he is also conscious of his erotic desires.

The lover clearly understands the teaching of the god of love, especially because he is fully conscious of the fact that his desires are impermissible; for instance, he says that were it not for the fear of being attacked or treated roughly, he would have cut at least one rosebud to hold in his hand and smell it (De Lorris and Jean 52). The lover ponders over his wish to touch and smell the rose, but at the same time he expresses his regret that touch is not permitted and any transgression of the acceptable conduct and distances inevitably attracts sanctions. The lover clearly expresses his fear of being physically attacked or roughly handled, which implies that courtly love is herein presented as something more of an oppressive social obligation as opposed to a mere cultural preference, and is physically enforceable. In that respect, the figure of the god of love clearly embodies the cultural oppression enforced by courtly love, which enforces acceptable social and/or cultural conduct.

The constant policing by the god of love evokes the broader cultural context within which the lover is situated, where the ideals of courtly love are physically enforced by arrows from the bow of the god of love. Entrance into love is not a free and pleasant one, especially given that the art of love is strictly defined and heavily regulated by the god of love, through the infliction of physical pain. For instance, the lover says that the love god aimed for the eye to his heart with the point of his arrow (De Lorris and Jean 54); thus, the lover understands perfectly well that the intention of the god of love’s physical assault, which is to defeat his erotic desires. Since it is the lover’s erotic view of the rose that evokes his desire to touch and smell it, the god of love punishes him for this erotic view of the rose by shooting him in the eye. By shooting out the lover’s eye, the god of love attempts to redirect his attention from the physical to the emotional. In that respect, the cultural context of the lover is regulated by a series of norms or principles of the permissible and impermissible conduct or behaviour, which the lover must adhere to unreservedly and uncompromisingly.

The lover is aware that his erotic interest in the rose is not permissible, thus he refrains, even though he has no power to resist his erotic attraction to the rose. He is wary of the punishment for his erotic view of the rose, so he dares not near the rose or touch it; despite the evident pleasures promised by the rose, the love god punishes these desires with great pain and anguish. The lover is totally immobilized and unsettled by the love, not knowing what to do or say; his desires are crushed by subsequent arrows of courtly love, which make him suffer immensely. The result of this torture by every strike by the god of love is that the lover’s erotic desires eventually become associated with physical pain, which inflicts pain on his heart. Thus, the lover identifies his erotic desire with the violence of the god of love; however, since the love god is also the embodiment of romantic love, the latter also becomes associated with suffering.

However, since the lover is completely enthralled by the rose, he feels that nothing but the sight and scent of the rose can soothe his pain and anguish from the assault by the god of love. For instance, the lover says that his desire to go near the rose and to smell it grew more with the increasing pain and suffering he endured at the hands of the love god’s arrows, and that he was not capable of resisting his heart’s desire (De Lorris and Jean 55). This implies that the arrows of the god of love clearly missed their mark, especially bearing in mind that the lover’s heart kept drawing him toward the rosebud. This shows that even though the lover is injured and fallen, he is still driven by his erotic desire for the rose, and persistently resists the teaching of the god of love, to yield to the demands of courtly love. Thus, the assault of the arrows only result to a further escalation in the lover’s desire for the rose, which keeps growing greater and stronger, despite the demands of the god of love for restraint and distance. The lover consistently demonstrates that he is not only incapable, but also unwilling to maintain distance and restraint in relation to the rose, as demanded by courtly love, since he insists on the pursuit of his erotic desires. In the end, the lover is neither able to fulfil his desires nor satisfy his yearning, thus, he remains conflicted because he cannot pursue his desires without consequences.

Nevertheless, the fact that the lover understands the teaching of the god of love to yield to courtly love is aptly illustrated in the lines where the lover says, “I shall never defend myself against you [...] I know very well that I cannot change things, for my life is in your hands” (De Lorris and Jean 56). Thus, the lover concedes to the fact that the god of love will not relent and, the more he insists on his desires, the more he will suffers the assault of the arrows of the god of love. The god of love appeals to the lover to yield and submit to the demands of courtly love by telling him that there was virtually no chance for him to escape or struggle. The god of love tells the lover that he should submit more freely and faster, in order to receive mercy and end the suffering he is going through; this implies that he has to submit to becoming a prisoner of love (De Lorris and Jean 56).

Significantly, the portrayal of a sexualized image of the rose highlights the contradictory effects and incompleteness of the romantic love model. On one hand, the lover is torn between the distinction of love and desire; on the other hand, the rose is also alienated from romance and sexualized. Thus, the rose fundamentally stands out as a symbol of the forbidden erotic desires; just as the mere thought of holding the rose arouses fear in the lover, sex is regarded a taboo subject in the context of the poem. Nevertheless, the lover’s response to the taboo of sex, or basically his forbidden desire for the rose, is highly ambivalent in the sense that even though he fears to touch and wants to dismember it at the same time, he also strongly feels compelled to preserve or violate it simultaneously. In this case, sex compared to violence, especially because the lover talks of his impulse to literally “cut” of the rose from the bush, to hold it and to smell its fragrance. However, his fear is so great that he has no option but to repress his erotic desire, despite the fact that the roses are so irresistible and act as a profound force against which he cannot win.

Ultimately, this paper indicates that the god of love offers teaching on the art of courtly love; while the lover completely understands this teaching, he resists it by insisting on the pursuit of his erotic desires. Unfortunately, the demands of courtly love result to immense pain and anguish that compels the lover to repress his erotic desire, and to yield to the domineering force of the love god. The lover’s life is, therefore, completely controlled by the forces of courtly love and he is rendered powerless in the face of its domineering influence. The lover’s desire is finally conquered; however, since the love god demands both restraint and distance, the lover is unable to realize both his love and his desire. Thus, the contradictory effects of the courtly love indicate that the latter be complemented through the integration of both the physical and the emotional.

Work Cited

De Lorris, Guillaume, and Jean De Meun. The Romance of the Rose. Trans. Charles Dahlberg. Hanover, NH: U of the New England, 1983. Print.