L’ombre de Faux Semblant : fiction, tromperie, et vérité dans la poésie allégorique après le Roman de la Rose (France, Angleterre, et Italie)

Abstract

The question of the epistemological status of

poetic language is a central concern in the Roman de la

Rose. The Rose itself is in fact conceived as an extended

reflection on the ability of poetry to convey philosophical

and transcendent truths. While Jean de Meun invokes this

possibility, his poem finally foregrounds the fictional and

fabricated nature of his own poetic vision, and highlights

the poet’s role as an producer of counterfeit truths. This

role is explored in particular through the character of

Faux Semblant, who acts as an embodiment of the liarparadox,

and becomes an emblem for the elusive and paradoxical

poetics of truth/deception that sustain the Roman

de la Rose in its entirety. This exploration of the intrinsic

deceptiveness of poetic art and the problematic role

of the poet, crystallises in a series of recurrent motifs

and concerns that haunt late medieval vernacular poetry

more broadly, especially in France, Britain, and Italy.

While the Franco-English tradition largely reproduces

Jean de Meun’s own scepticism concerning the veridical

status of poetic speech, the Italian tradition, especially in

the Fiore and in Dante’s work, systematically seeks to

suppress such scepticism, countering it with a stronger,

more ambitious authorial model of the poet as vates.