Keeping Up with the French

This chapter examines Jean Renart's Roman de la rose (early thirteenth century). It specifically assesses the way in which francophone lyric and other French artistic objects—the symbolic significance of which has previously been dismissed by critics—are circulated with a peculiar frenzy by the elite of the Holy Roman Empire in Rose. Renart implies that instead of taking an interest in the artistic traditions more native to the Empire—such as Minnesang (the German analog of troubadour and trouvère song)—the cultural elite of the Empire are infatuated with French cultural products. The chapter then looks at the processes through which Occitan song is assimilated into the broader francophone lyric landscape, one of which is linguistic Gallicization. This process has resulted in this text, as elsewhere in the French reception of the troubadours, in occasional moments of nonsensicality, and the chapter documents the various ways in which this nonsensicality is accounted for within the narrative. Finally, it considers the ramifications of this staging of French culture (including Gallicized Occitan) within the narrative.