SOURCE: White, Hugh. “Natura Vicaria Dei” and “The Roman de la Rose.” In Nature, Sex, and Goodness in a Medieval Literary Tradition, pp. 84-101, 120-28, 132-36. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

In the following excerpt, White contrasts the sexual aspects and attitudes towards Nature in De Planctu Naturae and the Anticlaudianus, as well as examines the influence of Nature as Alan depicts her in De Planctu on Jean de Meun's characterization and conception of Nature in the Roman de la Rose.

De Planctu Naturae

The Cosmographia [a Neoplatonic allegory describing the origins of the universe, written by Bernardus Silvestris, which appeared around 1147] influenced two works by Alan of Lille, the De planctu Naturae and the Anticlaudianus.¹ The Anticlaudianus, the later work,² is perhaps the closer of the two in its conception of Nature to the Cosmographia. In the De planctu, as generally in the post-Bernardan Nature tradition, Nature remains...