Jean de Meung
Jean de Meung or de Meun, or Jean Chopinel or Clopinel (around 1240 in Meung- sur-Loire-circa 1305 in Paris) was a French poet of the 13th century.
Biography
Tradition affirms that he studied at the University of Paris; He was, like his contemporary Rutebeuf, a defender of Guillaume de Saint-Amour and a staunch critic of the mendicant orders. Most of his life seems to have been spent in Paris, where he owned, on the rue Saint-Jacques, a house with a tower, patio and garden that was described in 1305 as the property of the late Jean de Meung and was given by a certain Adam. d'Andely to the Dominicans.
Jean de Meung wrote that in his youth he composed poems that were sung in all public places and schools in France. He translated several works from Latin into French, especially De consolatione philosophiæ by Boethius, although he is mainly known as the author of the second part of the Roman de la Rose, a long allegorical narrative of a love theme whose first part was composed by Guillaume de Lorris. In the part written by him he approached more closely the medieval genre of debate and, like many poets at the end of the XIII century, influenced about the development of the incipient bourgeoisie within the third estate, he wrote in a satirical tone showing the decomposition of medieval society and the weaknesses of his time, which he knew very well.
He was also a very educated man, such that his knowledge earned him fame among the populace as an alchemist and astrologer. A medieval trait of his character was, however, misogyny, of which Christine de Pisan accused him in what is currently considered one of the first quarrels of Feminism. His death was shrouded in anecdotal details, as he bequeathed to the Jacobin monks of Paris a chest that could only be opened after his death; These monks buried him with great honors in his abbey, but when they opened the chest they saw that it only contained stones; This outraged the Jacobins, who exhumed his body, but the king intervened and reburied him without his remains being further disturbed.
Works
Its continuation of the Roman de la Rose by Guillaume de Lorris is usually dated between 1268 and 1285 due to a reference in the text to the death of Manfred and Conradin, the latter executed in 1268 by order of Charles of Anjou, who died in 1285, who is described as the current king of Sicily. However, if the poem is considered primarily as political satire, it would have to be dated to the last five years of the 13th century. Jean de Meung undoubtedly edited the work of his predecessor Guillaume de Lorris before using it as a starting point for his own vast poem, extending to 19,000 verses.
The sequel is a satire of monastic orders, celibacy, nobility, the papal see, the excessive pretensions of royalty and, especially, women and marriage. Guillaume had been "servant of love" and an exponent of the laws of courtoisie or courtly love that Jean de Meung rejects. In fact, he added a & # 34; Art of loving & # 34; crudely exposing the vices of women, his mastery in the arts of deception and the means by which men can be clouded and blinded by them. Jean de Meung embodies the mocking and skeptical spirit about fables, he did not believe in superstitions nor did he have any respect for established institutions; he even despised the conventions of feudalism. His poem displays in the highest degree, notwithstanding the laxity of his plan, the powers of keen observation, lucid reasoning and exposition, which gives him just right to be considered the greatest of French poets. medieval. He handles the French language with an ease and precision unknown to his predecessors and the long length of his poem was no impediment to his popularity and dissemination throughout the 13th and 14th centuries. Part of its rise was undoubtedly due to the scholarly character of the author, who, having mastered almost all the scientific and literary knowledge that could be acquired in the France of his time with his means, gave rise to a large amount of useful and useful information in his poem. numerous quotes from classical authors. However, it also had strong detractors: the book was attacked by Guillaume de Deguileville in his Pèlerinage de la vie humaine (c. 1330), a work also extensive and popular in England and France; These criticisms were joined by the philosopher Jean Gerson and Christine de Pisan, who defends her sex from the insults of Jean de Meung in her Epitre au dieu d'amour.
In 1284, Jean de Meung translated Vegetius's treatise De Re Militari into French as Le livre de Végèce de l'art de chevalerie (" The book of Vegetius on the discipline of chivalry"). He also wrote an inspired version, the first in French, of the letters of Abelard and Heloise. A manuscript of this translation is found, with scholia by Francesco Petrarca, in the National Library of Paris. His translation of Boethius's De consolatione philosophiae is preceded by a letter to Philip IV the Fair of France in which he lists his ancient works, two of which have been lost: De spirituelle amitié from the De spiritualis amicitia of Elred of Rieval (died 1166), and the Livre des merveilles d'Hirlande, translation of the Topographia Hibernica or De Mirabilibus Hiberniae from Giraldus Cambrensis (Gerald de Barri). His last poems are undoubtedly his Testament and his Codicille . The Testament is written in monorhyme and contains notices of various kinds to the different levels of society. He is also the author of a Dodechedron de fortune published a century and a half later (Paris: Etienne Groulleau, 1556).