On the Way Toward Love

Au commencement était l'amour. (Jacques Lacan)

How to begin? How can I begin? I may begin by stating the fact that I am beginning, by declaring, for instance, that I am now beginning a novel that I will call—in response to the hypothetical question of no less hypothetical readers— the “Romance of the Rose.” Strangely enough, what these hypothetical readers are not made to ask is my name, an omission which allows me to remain, like the lyric “I,” unidentifiable.

The statement “I am beginning the Romance of the Rose” does not, however, coincide with the beginning of the Romance of the Rose.1 Occurring some thirty lines after the beginning of the text, it abruptly interrupts a Prologue where an unnamed “I” has professed his belief in prophetic dreams, a belief which is confirmed when a dream he has dreamt five years previously “comes true.” Without providing any transition, the text shifts to a presentation of the narrative act presumed now to be taking place. The Romance of the Rose re-begins, as it were, by telling the story of the beginning of story-telling itself: