MARIE DE FRANCE
Marie De France:
- First woman writer in French (so far as we know)
-wrote during the 12th century
-Romances: novelistic narratives that dealt with adventure and LOVE.
-Most famous romances are the stories of King Arthur.
- The Arthurian Legends were a mythology developed by the Celts of Western Europe, and Medeival Literature is highly influenced by Celtic Mythology.
-The French Lais (Lays in English) are short narratives of love, adventure, and the supernatural.
-The first lais appears in 1165 by a woman called "Marie"... we later learn also that she is "from France", thus her name, Marie de France.
-She was a noblewoman that could read French, English, and Latin.
-She wrote in Anglo-Norman, a French Dialect spoken by the nobility in England.
-12 of her lais survive.
-They come from stories she heard. She includes several Berton terms, like the word "laustic" meaning "nightengale".
-The 2 lais in the book represent 2 sides of "love as an alternative": in "Lanval" it is successful, in "Laustic", it is not.
-Primogeniture -- the eldest son inherits all of his parents' goods and property.
"Lanval"
Lanval is a young foreigner who comes to the Arthurian courst to "seek his fortune", "inheritance". As a younger son, Lanval was likely excluded from the family inheritance. He is denied, but a fairy lover, who is beautiful, loving, and rich, comes to rescue him. He attracts the attention of the queen, but he denies her advances. Lanval's distress comes when he faces the loss of his love. He is being punished for his "rash words with the queen"... but he refuses to claim the damsals that come to him "as warrant for his rash words". He passes a test, and so his lover appears and takes him away with her to Avalon; love triumphs.
"Laustic"
This is a story of unfulfilled love. It deals with the custom of arranged marriages. The European nobility saw marriage as a financial and political matter, while the church saw it as a matter of free consent. Marie's stories are filled with unhappy wives because they know they deserve better. The young wife in the story can only dream of escape and gazes at her "would be lover". The nightengale is symbolic of her longing to escape, and when her husband brutlaly kills it and throws it (blood and all) at her, it stains her dress, thus an outward symbol of her broken heart.
Notes from The Norton Anthology of Literature, 2nd Ed., Vol. B.
These works by Marie de France, a French woman living in the court of Henry II of England, illustrate the shift from the heroic qualities of literature in the ancient world to the courtly or romance literature of the Middle Ages. Like "comedy" with Dante, the term "romance" does not mean what it does today. Instead, it refers to works written in the vernacular, in this case French, instead of Latin. The subject matter is essentially devoid of any concern with the Church except in terms of a general societal influence. What does usually lie at the heart of these romances are knightly intrigue, damsels in distress, and other "soap opera"-esque topics. This is the timeframe in which many of the tales of the Knights of the Round Table were first written down.
Marie wrote a type of poetry referred to as a lai. These poems were narrative, that is they told a story, and they used a large number of symbolic elements such as plants, flowers, and colors. In Lanval, there are traces of the larger story of King Arthur. This was a common arena of romance stories in the Middle Ages. What is probably the most interesting element of Marie's works is the emphasis on female characters. She portrays courtly women in a light completely different than most medieval writers. Her women seem to have a life and mind of their own, albeit still limited by today's standards. This is probably due to the fact that the queen of Henry II was the indomitable Eleanor of Aquitaine (if you are interested in history at all, this is person you might want to read up on - she's a very impressive person). She was a noted patroness of the arts. She was also powerful in her own right. She fought several battles against her husband in order to get her favorite son on the throne. She won several, too. With such a powerful woman as a role model, it is little wonder that Marie's women are much stronger than most other female characters in the Middle Ages.
- First woman writer in French (so far as we know)
-wrote during the 12th century
-Romances: novelistic narratives that dealt with adventure and LOVE.
-Most famous romances are the stories of King Arthur.
- The Arthurian Legends were a mythology developed by the Celts of Western Europe, and Medeival Literature is highly influenced by Celtic Mythology.
-The French Lais (Lays in English) are short narratives of love, adventure, and the supernatural.
-The first lais appears in 1165 by a woman called "Marie"... we later learn also that she is "from France", thus her name, Marie de France.
-She was a noblewoman that could read French, English, and Latin.
-She wrote in Anglo-Norman, a French Dialect spoken by the nobility in England.
-12 of her lais survive.
-They come from stories she heard. She includes several Berton terms, like the word "laustic" meaning "nightengale".
-The 2 lais in the book represent 2 sides of "love as an alternative": in "Lanval" it is successful, in "Laustic", it is not.
-Primogeniture -- the eldest son inherits all of his parents' goods and property.
"Lanval"
Lanval is a young foreigner who comes to the Arthurian courst to "seek his fortune", "inheritance". As a younger son, Lanval was likely excluded from the family inheritance. He is denied, but a fairy lover, who is beautiful, loving, and rich, comes to rescue him. He attracts the attention of the queen, but he denies her advances. Lanval's distress comes when he faces the loss of his love. He is being punished for his "rash words with the queen"... but he refuses to claim the damsals that come to him "as warrant for his rash words". He passes a test, and so his lover appears and takes him away with her to Avalon; love triumphs.
"Laustic"
This is a story of unfulfilled love. It deals with the custom of arranged marriages. The European nobility saw marriage as a financial and political matter, while the church saw it as a matter of free consent. Marie's stories are filled with unhappy wives because they know they deserve better. The young wife in the story can only dream of escape and gazes at her "would be lover". The nightengale is symbolic of her longing to escape, and when her husband brutlaly kills it and throws it (blood and all) at her, it stains her dress, thus an outward symbol of her broken heart.
Notes from The Norton Anthology of Literature, 2nd Ed., Vol. B.
These works by Marie de France, a French woman living in the court of Henry II of England, illustrate the shift from the heroic qualities of literature in the ancient world to the courtly or romance literature of the Middle Ages. Like "comedy" with Dante, the term "romance" does not mean what it does today. Instead, it refers to works written in the vernacular, in this case French, instead of Latin. The subject matter is essentially devoid of any concern with the Church except in terms of a general societal influence. What does usually lie at the heart of these romances are knightly intrigue, damsels in distress, and other "soap opera"-esque topics. This is the timeframe in which many of the tales of the Knights of the Round Table were first written down.
Marie wrote a type of poetry referred to as a lai. These poems were narrative, that is they told a story, and they used a large number of symbolic elements such as plants, flowers, and colors. In Lanval, there are traces of the larger story of King Arthur. This was a common arena of romance stories in the Middle Ages. What is probably the most interesting element of Marie's works is the emphasis on female characters. She portrays courtly women in a light completely different than most medieval writers. Her women seem to have a life and mind of their own, albeit still limited by today's standards. This is probably due to the fact that the queen of Henry II was the indomitable Eleanor of Aquitaine (if you are interested in history at all, this is person you might want to read up on - she's a very impressive person). She was a noted patroness of the arts. She was also powerful in her own right. She fought several battles against her husband in order to get her favorite son on the throne. She won several, too. With such a powerful woman as a role model, it is little wonder that Marie's women are much stronger than most other female characters in the Middle Ages.
