Unveiling the ‘I’: Allegory and authorship in the Franco -English tradition, 1270–1450

Unveiling the \u27I\u27 traces the impact of the innovative form of the Roman de la Rose in French and English literary history. The Rose inspired a new tradition of authorial self-representation in the late medieval period by crafting a complex first-person voice speaking as both narrator and protagonist of extended allegorical narrative. Whereas previous studies of Rose reception in England have focused on direct responses to the Rose or its fourteenth-century English translation, I propose a trajectory of more mediated exchange, accomplished through English translation of contemporary French allegory written in response to the Rose. Centered on the formal structure of voice rather than thematic continuity, my study of Rose reception traverses the theoretical divide between secular and sacred allegory. The self-naming poets Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas Hoccleve, and John Lydgate each translated passages of the spiritual Rose-inspired allegories written by Guillaume de Deguileville, as well as the allegories of other French poets, including Christine de Pizan, Evrart de Conty, and Laurent Premierfait. Taking the interrelation of the Rose and Deguileville\u27s allegories as its starting point, and examining the responses of Chaucer, Hoccleve, and Lydgate in turn, my dissertation gives a new, cross-linguistic account of vernacular first-person allegory in late medieval England, arguing for its significant impact on the representation of authorship