Marie de France (c. 1160)
| The Lais | Lanval |
This manuscript picture purports to be Marie writing. Since this manuscript was copied after her death, it is probably not a "portrait" in the modern sense, but it gives you a sense of how her near-contemporaries thought she looked.
From: http://faculty.winthrop.edu/kosterj/ENGL512/Marie.htm
Very little is known for certain about Marie de France, apart from a line in one of her published works: Marie ai nun, si sui de France, which translates as, "My name is Marie, I am from France." In spite of a lack of information about her biography, she is almost universally accepted as the first French woman poet. Scholars consider her second only to her contemporary Chrétien de Troyes as the best-known French poet of the twelfth century. Research indicates that she may have been an illegitimate half-sister to King Henry II and active in his court in England. Scholars also believe that Marie wrote for the entertainment of the aristocracy, and was an extremely popular poet in her day. Most of Marie’s works are written in the Anglo-Norman vernacular instead of formal Latin, and explore questions of love and chivalry. Marie rewrote a Latin narrative about an Irish knight in L’Espurgatoire Seint Patriz (Saint Patrick’s Puratory), which was one of the most popular texts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. She also reworked Aesop’s fables into Old French in Ysopets (Fables).
Marie’s most well-known works are her twelve lais. The twelve Lais and their prologue, along with a copy of the Fables, are preserved in a mid-13th century manuscript (BN MS Harley 978), and various lais also appear in other manuscripts. Lais (or lays) are a musical and poetic form consisting of rhymed stanzas of 6-16 lines with 4-8 syllables per line. Marie wrote Breton lais (link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breton_lai) in octosyllabic couplets, crediting Breton minstrels as the source for the material of her poems. In her Prologue, she reveals that her lais come directly from the Breton oral tradition, which commonly handles issues of chivalry and incorporates elements of Celtic mythology. The lais of Marie de France are as follows:
- Guigemar
- Equitan
- Le Fresne
- Bisclavret
- Lanval
- Les Deux Amanz
- Yonec
- Laüstic
- Milun
- Chaitivel
- Chevrefoil
- Eliduc
Each of the lais is a short romance about a knight, often as a lover struggling in hostile or restrictive surroundings. Marie’s lovers are often helped or hindered by magic and supernatural animal interventions and transformations. Lanval is one of the most widely-discussed lais, as well as the only one of Marie’s lais that is set in King Arthur’s court. Lanval is well-known for its negative treatment of Arthur’s queen (Guinevere is not named, but her identity is assumed), and its insight into legal practices of the twelfth century.
Lanval is a knight of King Arthur who displays all necessary chivalric qualities, including valor, beauty, and largesse, but is in despair over Arthur’s lack of generosity towards him. Wandering alone by a stream, Lanval meets a beautiful woman and her attendants. This mysterious woman is so wealthy that “no king under the sun could afford” the tent she inhabited, “however much he might give” (74). She professes her love for Lanval and he declares his loyalty to her. They make love and she grants him access to her infinite wealth, on the condition that he keeps their relationship secret. With his new-found wealth, Lanval is able to exercise the generosity that Arthur shamefully neglected. “There was no knight in the town in sore need of shelter whom he did not summon and serve richly and well” (75). One day, Arthur’s queen (named Guinevere in some translations, though not in the original), attempts to seduce Lanval, who rejects her. Angry, the queen accuses Lanval of homosexuality, and he defends himself by telling her of his lover and her great beauty. He tells her that even the poorest of his lover’s servants is more beautiful than the queen. Out of revenge, the queen tells Arthur that Lanval come on to her and insulted her, and the king demands Lanval be put on trial. During the trial, the Count of Cornwall, a member of the jury of barons, speaks out for justice, declaring that, “Like it or not, right must prevail” and that were it not for the loyalty they owe their king, there would be no trial because the crime is so minor (78). In an attempt to free Lanval, the Count determines that if Lanval can prove he spoke the truth of his beloved and was not just trying to spit the queen then the king should pardon him. But because Lanval knows he has betrayed the secrecy his lover asked him to maintain, he has little hope of he coming to his rescue to prove that he spoke the truth of her beauty. Just as the verdict is about to be pronounced, to everyone’s surprise, two of the fairy-lady’s attendants appear, both more beautiful than any other woman. They are followed by two other, even more beautiful attendants, and finally by Lanval’s lover herself. All agree that she is the most beautiful woman, and after she publicly affirms her relationship with Lanval, he is declared innocent. The poem ends with Lanval and his lover departing for Avalon, never to be heard from again.
Lanval has been called a “largesse fable” and a “Marxian fairytale” for its emphasis on economic issues of the feudal society. Howard Bloch, among others, sees Lanval as a representative of the “neglected” class of lower nobility and second sons, his money troubles symbolic of this group’s “material condition” (69). Bloch interprets Lanval’s encounter with the “fairy lady” as representative of “a dream of possession”, and the lai as a “literary incarnation of a fantasized solution to the material problems of the class of unmarried, unendowed” younger sons (69).
Lanval is also noteworthy for its portrayal of two women (the lover and the queen) as the authoritative characters, as well as the lover, independently wealthy, assuming the traditional role of the feudal lord by financially—and emotionally--providing for her vassal/lover. Contrary to many medieval romances, it is the woman in Lanval that rescues the knight, and carries him off on her horse. Some scholars have put forward that the fairy-mistress might be Morgan le Fay, another powerful fairy in Arthurian tales, based on the pair’s retreat to Avalon at the end of the poem.
The scene of the trial in Lanval is likely reflective of the twelfth-century justice system. The king's seeking his vassal's advice and consent to the proceedings, the Count of Cornwall's summation of the case, and the construction of a suitable "trial" or test of Lanval's words' truth all seem to be indicative of the legal system during the reign of Henry II. Also significant is the way King Arthur’s knights and vassals side with Lanval and though they do not defy the king, they consider the accusations against Lanval relatively trivial. The lai is unique in its treatment of Arthur, and his queen, as less than the epitome of generosity, beauty, and prudence.
Major editions:
The Lais of Marie de France. Trans. Keith Busby
and Glyn S. Burgess. New York: Viking Penguin,
1986. Prose translations cited in summary.
The Lais of Marie de France. Trans.
Joan Ferrante and Robert Hanning.
Durham, NC: The Labyrinth Press, 1982. Verse
translations.
Les Lais de Marie de France. Edited by Jean Rychner. Paris: Champion, 1966. Considered definitive edition in French.
Marie de France: Fables. Trans. Harriet Spiegel. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987.
Saint Patrick's Purgatory. Trans. by Michael J. Curley. Binghamton, New York: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Texts, 1993.
Sources for Analysis:
Bloch, R. Howard. The Anonymous Marie de France. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Bloch performs a close reading of all of Marie’s works in an attempt to resolve the question of Marie’s anonymity. He attempts a gendered psychological portrait through his analysis of her works and historical context. Composes a Marxian analysis of Lanval, seeing Lanval as symbolic of the class of 12 th-century lower nobility.
Burgess, Glyn S. The Lais of Marie de France: Texts and Contexts. New York: University of Georgia Press, 1987.
Burgess hypothesizes about connections between the lais and Marie’s life/historical events. Draws some dubious insights about Marie’s life from his analysis of her lais, and his conclusions are too dependent on his arrangement of a chronology for the composition of the lais.
Mickel, Jr., Emanuel J. Marie de France. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc, 1974.
This text looks at the narrative devices employed in all the lais, including irony and symbolism. Mickel also explains the connections between the legal system in Lanval and the historical realities of the legal system.
Rosenn, Eva. "The Sexual and Textual Politics of Marie's Poetics." In Quest of Marie de France, A Twelfth-Century Poet. Ed. Chantal A. Maréchal. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1992. 225-242.
Rosenn argues that most of the details of Lanval are directly influenced by stories of classical Greece and Rome, and that many elements thought to be Celtic influences are really from romans antiques. However, Rosenn overlooks wider themes and plot developments that other scholars can trace directly to Celtic or even biblical origins.
Primary Sources:
- Verse translations of all lais into English (by Judith P. Shoaf) can be found at: http://www.english.ufl.edu/exemplaria/intro.html
- Lais in the original Old French can be found at: http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/french_spanish_and_italian/leslais.htm
Secondary Sources:
- Summaries of all lais by Dr. Fidel Fajardo-Acosta, Creighton University can be found at: http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/english/fajardo/teaching/eng340/marie_de_france.htm
- International Marie de France Society Web Site, English Dept., Virginia Commonwealth University. Provides links to a wide-range of related web pages with translations and secondary material. www.people.vcu.edu/~cmarecha/
- The Lais of Marie de France Study Guide by Paul Brians, Washington State University. Provides brief background and a set of question for each lai, useful for focusing on themes and key points. http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/love-in-the-arts/marie.html
- “Rethinking Marie” by Dinah Hazell, 2003. Medieval Forum, San Francisco State University. Hazell questions the assumption that Marie lived in England and considers what an alternative view would reveal about her self-descriptions and dedications. http://www.sfsu.edu/~medieval/Volume2/Hazell.html
- “The French Woman Writer in the Middle Ages: Staying Up Late” by Tilde Sankovitch, Northwestern University. This article examines how Marie de France establishes her authority and defines her role as a woman writer. http://www.luc.edu/publications/medieval/vol7/sankovi.html
- “The Making of the Man: Woman as Consummator in the Lais of Marie de France” by Judith Barban, Winthrop University. The South Carolina Modern Language Review Volume 1, Number 1. Barban compares Marie's treatment of men and of women in five of the lais and shows how the women are controlling forces in each story. Looks at Lanval’s fairy-lover as the idealized woman in contrast to the too-fallible queen. http://alpha1.fmarion.edu/~scmlr/barban.htm