Jean de Meung
Jean de Meung (also Jean de Meun , actually Jean Clopinel [French "footstep"] or Jean Chopinel ; * around 1240, probably in Meung-sur-Loire , † at the latest in 1305, probably in Paris ) was a French author.
There is next to no reliable information about his biography, except that he lived in Paris for a long time. It can be inferred indirectly that he must at least have graduated from the artist faculty and was a cleric . In any case, he had the opportunity to acquire a profound philosophical, theological, literary and natural history education.
In terms of literary history, Jean de Meung became particularly important through the continuation and completion of the rose novel ( Roman de la Rose ) begun by Guillaume de Lorris around 1230–40 , which he probably wrote in 1275–80 and with which he almost 4,000 verses by Guillaume 18,000 verses expanded. The rose novel was one of the greatest book successes of the French Middle Ages, because more than 300 manuscripts have been preserved and practically all between 1300 and 1500 active French authors knew it, which is probably more due to the learned and more diverse part of jeans (under whose name alone that Work in the Middle Ages) than the poetically actually more beautiful part of Guillaume.
The later activity of Jean de Meung consisted mainly of translating Latin texts into French, which apparently satisfied the needs of the increasing number of literate and thirsty for knowledge, especially in the growing and prosperous cities of his time. In particular, he transferred the standard work of the art of war De re militari by Flavius Vegetius (late 4th / early 5th century AD), the letters Abelard and Heloisa (12th century), the Historia calamitatum Abelard and the 523/24 AD In the dungeon he wrote consolation book De Consolatione Philosophiae by Boethius .
Rose Roman works are processed by more than forty authors, including Ovid's Metamorphoses , writings of the theologian and rector of the University of Paris Guillaume de Saint-Amour and works of the doctor universalis called Cistercian Alain de Lille (Alain de Lille). Because of his cynical portrayal of physical love and his misogynistic tendencies, he was attacked by Christine de Pizan , who started the first literary debate in France with her writings Epistre au dieu d'amour (1399) and Le Dit de la rose (1402).
As was often the case with successful authors at the time, his contemporaries posthumously ascribed works that he had not written. Including works of alchemy , which was probably inspired by a brief digression into alchemy in the Roman de la Rose, which found its way into the manuscripts of alchemists.
Jean de Meung was buried in the Saint-Jacques monastery in Paris .
Individual evidence
- ^ Didier Kahn : Jean de Meun . In: Claus Priesner , Karin Figala (Ed.): Alchemie. Lexicon of a Hermetic Science . Beck, Munich 1998, p. 183ff. ISBN 3-406-44106-8 .
Web links
- Article in "Names, titles and dates of French literature" (main source)
- Literature by and about Jean de Meung in the catalog of the German National Library
- Jean de Meung: Le Romant de la Rose BSB (Cod.gall. 17)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Jean de Meung |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Jean de Meun; Jean Clopinel; Jean Chopinel |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French poet, scholar and translator |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1240 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Meung-sur-Loire |
| DATE OF DEATH | before 1305 |
| Place of death | Paris |