The Romance of the Rose

Love, or Cupid in some translations, is the god of love and sexual desire from Greek and Roman mythology and the lord over the narrator. Love is a static allegorical archetype for his very name: He represents the unavoidable power of romantic and sexual desire that all those who hope to love must obey. Love’s power and goodness are often repeated throughout the text, but he shows harsher traits, such as demanding perfect loyalty from his followers and threatening those who disagree with him. At times, his descriptions overlap with the Christian God, but he is unquestionably intended to be a divine role.

Love is characterized by his personality, but he is also given an extensive physical description that depicts him as noble, divine, and powerful. Beauty is often equated to goodness within allegory, and he is described as uncommonly beautiful. He wears a chaplet, or crown, of roses, symbolizing both passion and a foreshadowing of the love interest in the poem. His garments are covered in other flowers and birds. Both symbolize beauty, but birds—particularly nightingales and parrots—also symbolize artistic beauty and social power. Birds were an important marker of success in the medieval period, as rare birds were used both as pets and as elaborate dishes. Connecting Love to birds therefore demonstrates his importance and beauty.

Fair Welcome and the rose can be grouped together, as both are treated in their own ways as love interests to the narrator—while the rose is the object of physical desire, it cannot be accessed without permission from Fair Welcome, who allegorically represents consent and interest from the woman. Their dyadic representation of the love interest in the story is an important component of the allegorical dream since every aspect of the story represents a different version of the lover’s journey. Separating the love interest into components is part of the stylistic nature of the narrative.

The rose is given no specific characterization and is a passive object. Although it is described as beautiful, and the specific parts represent a woman’s body allegorically, it functions primarily as a symbol instead of a character. Since roses were commonly associated with passion and beauty, the rose functions as a symbol for a woman’s sexuality.

Fair Welcome is described and characterized extensively, often in a stereotypically feminine way despite the fact that he is a man in the story. He is kind, gentle, and a bit naïve. His trusting nature results in his constant imprisonment throughout the story. He is beautiful and shows no faults otherwise, and he is the character the narrator desires the most, representing the need for a young man to earn a young woman’s consent prior to sexual or romantic activity.

Reason is a foil to Love, although, like him, she is a static character who allegorically represents her own name. While Love is the force of unreasonable, but often praiseworthy, passion in the text, Reason is characterized as intensely rational, practical, and dismissive of others but unfailingly wise. The narrator, however, scorns her advice due to her inability or unwillingness to see romantic love as useful or valuable.

Reason’s characterization is shaped by her physical appearance. She is described as “perfect” but average—she is neither large nor small, tall nor short, and so on, emphasizing her rationality in always being the “golden mean” of two extremes. While Love draws people to extremes, Reason expects people to be steady and even, like her own appearance.

Reason is a woman but is not described in the same way as many other female characters. While most other characters have their hair or clothing described, she is given little physical descriptors beyond her perfect symmetry. Despite this, her gender is important to her characterization: Despite her rationality, she does demand that the narrator become her servant and lover like a noblewoman might. Additionally, her willingness to say words like “testicles” without embarrassment sets her apart from the expectations of gender at the time. Her straightforwardness embarrasses and disgusts the narrator but is praised within the text, highlighting the narrator’s human foolishness.

The guardians of the rose are Rebuff, Evil Tongue, Shame, Fear, and Jealousy. Rebuff, Evil Tongue, and Jealousy are characterized as evil, harmful, and cruel, willing to hurt both Fair Welcome and the narrator to protect the purity and innocence of the rose. Shame and Fear are not evil but are easily controlled, afraid of punishment, and innocent. All the characters are antagonists to the narrator, as their primary role is to obstruct his path to the rose and imprison Fair Welcome, forcing the narrator to go to war against them with Love’s armies.

Some of the characters are given appearances that, in medieval times, would convey their varying personality traits. Rebuff is described as a brute who is “big and black, with bristly hair and fiery red eyes” (45). This is in line with the racism and colorism of the era—while blond hair and fair skin were seen as signs of goodness, dark coloration was treated as unattractive at best and demonic at worst. Shame is described as a nun, which aligns with her personality and allegorical characterization—she is afraid of being seen as sinful and wishes to appear praiseworthy.

Other characters are given fewer physical descriptors but characterized by their actions, which typically align with their name. Fear shakes whenever she faces opposition, while Evil Tongue spreads rumors and delights in harming others. Jealousy, the primary antagonist of the group, isolates others and is the primary motivator behind Fair Welcome’s kidnapping. Although each character is portrayed as antagonistic or at least unhelpful, Evil Tongue is the only one to die, when his tongue is cut out by False Seeming.