THE simplest form of allegory is the fable (page 90 ).
Still presenting types, but ampler, is the popular
medieval debate ⁿ (débat, conflictus). With more or
less thread of story, sometimes with descriptive
elaboration, this pits against each other two typical
figures. The Owl and the Nightingale, ⁿ one of the
liveliest, personifies in the two birds the old strife
between wisdom and art. Written early in the
thirteenth century, the 1794 four-stress lines of
dialogue are more than mere moralizing. With
bright or sharp descriptive touches, they have hints of
that interaction which later enlivened Chaucer
Parlement of Foules.

The French Roman de la Rose, ⁿ most popular of
medieval allegories, presents the typical figures of
Courtesy, Disdain, Fair-seeming, Shame, and other
qualities as ladies and gentlemen. The rose-lady is
love; and such story as there is tells of how love is
finally won. For the allegory is of amour courtois,
the code of social conduct in wooing. So it was con-
ceived by Guillaume de Lorris, who between 1200
and 1230 wrote his pretty, conventional descriptions
in some 4000 fluent lines. With little more of his

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