Richard de Fourniva'sl Le Bestiaire d'amour appeared shortly after the middle of the thirteenth century. It was no ordinary bestiary, and its radical manipulation of two established traditions marked the beginning of a new naturalism that would eventually receive full expression in Jean de Meun's Le Roman de la rose. The iconoclastic nature of Le Bestiaire d'amour is, however, frequently overlooked, perhaps because of the blandness of its original editor. His description of it as "ces fleurs de l'histoire naturelle rassemblées en bouquets a Chloris" [p. 4] is even less apt than it would have been as a description of Le Roman de le rose. Conversely, it is to Le Bestiaire d'amour before Le Roman de la rose that Paré’s description of "une composition systématiquement ordonnée a ridiculiser les théories de l'amour coutois" is most appropriate. - [Author]

Language: English

DOI: 10.1075/rein.1.04bee