Customer Reviews

The Lais of Marie de France (Penguin Classics)

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Before the famous Italian Renaissance, you could speak of a French Renaissance in the 12th century as far as literature is concerned.
In Southern France there were the Troubadours, singers and poets, often part of the nobility or their entourage. In the North of France you had Chretien de Troyes and his Arthurian romances and the Lais of Marie de France, to name only two of the most important.
The 'Roman de la Rose' was written in the 13th cent. but is probably the most important masterwork of the French Renaissance.

About the person of Marie de France almost nothing is known for certain.Her 'Lais' - stories about romance or adventure - are based upon the popular and folkloristic tales that already existed for centuries in Bretagne - a region close to where the Atlantic meets the North-Sea.
These stories were handed down from generation to generation by story tellers.
The Lais of Marie de France excel by diversity. There are love stories - of course - but also vivid descriptions of
tournaments and even a story about a werewolf.
Marie de France proofs that medieval literature can be entertaining.

This is a wonderful collection of old old Breton tales written into poems by Marie de France in the 12th century. Who exactly Marie was is a bit of an enigma, as the introduction to the book explains. But she was unquestionably a gifted writer: her lais, written to entertain courtly audiences, vary colourfully one from another, and positively sparkle with romance, passion, and wit. Mostly they tell of grand loves between courtly young men and comely noble maidens, and there is some great obstacle to overcome. Some endings are happy, others tragic; there is always a great test of the spirit, with notions of loyalty, honesty, honour, and true love playing into the mix. The scenes when lovers get together can be downright ... (in a subtle medieval sort of way). The translation puts the poems into prose, though the language remains poetic. Altogether, you can see why these gems of stories have lasted 800+ years.

The version of The Lais of Marie de France, translated by Glyn Burgess and Keith Busby, is a substantial collection of lays by Marie de France. Though little is known about the writer, Burgess and Busby provide a thorough presentation of the literary evidence relevant to the question of authorship. Furthermore, they discuss the literary history of previous compilations of Marie's lays, laying a broad foundation for even the amateur reader of medieval literature.

The lays in this collection are themselves rich and thematically diverse. Through the literature, Marie makes sharp criticism of medieval gender roles, examines the character and dynamics of Arthur's court, and challenges the modern view of marriage and love. In the story "Lanval," Marie even makes a start towards defining a woman's beauty. To credit of the translators, her stories are both straightforward and accessible to the modern reader. This collection is highly recommended, and well worth the price.

The Lais of Marie de France, aside from being a landmark in the history of literature, are a collection of romantic stories that transcend time. I absolutely love the power and authority Marie de France assigns to her female characters. She juxtaposes the social superiority of men during the late twelfth century with abnormally strong women. The effect can be both compelling and saddening, while always poignant. In the Lai du Lanval, Marie de France creates a larger-than-life female character whose authority and affluence eclipse even King Arthur's grandeur. She essentially tells a love story in reverse, wherein the woman, as the figurative 'white knight',
rescues the man, who plays the role of the 'damsel in distress'. Also, in the Lai du Laustic, she tells the tale of a woman who falls in love with her neighbor and uses the chirping of a nightingale to justify her late night meetings with him. When her husband grows tired of her leaving the bed each
night, he has the nightingale killed so that his wife can sleep. Without the nightingale's chirping, she cannot talk to her love, thus, as an explanation of their bad fortune, she wraps the dead bird and sends it to her lover. This particular lai exposes the sad, immutable predicament of arranged marriages. Marie de France uses clever and subtle ways to describe the complications of love and marriage, which make her writing so uniquely profound.
More specifically, I believe the Penguin Classic's edition of The Lais of Marie de France is an excellent version to study. Compared to other translations I've read, this is the most readable. The translators, Glyn S. Burgess and Keith Busby make it clear in their Translator's note that their aim was to stay as close to the original written word as possible.
Their introduction is equally fascinating, as they explore the possibilities that Marie de France was not actually a woman and that she may not have written all of the lais. I think the introduction is wonderful: the translators examine much of the context surrounding the lais, which creates and entirely new level of depth for the reader.
The actual book, however, seems a little too expensive ($10.95) for the approximate 170 pages it provides (we're talking like 7 cents per page!). But, I must say, it's entirely worth the price.
I think that aside from being the earliest known French female poet, Marie de France gained and maintains so much popularity because she really hit the nail on the head when she described the underbelly of courtly love. The psychology of her characters is so accurate and moving that the fairy-
tale atmosphere can not conceal the messages embedded in the lais. And those messages have become a fixture of popular culture in the 21st century. Sitcoms, films and literature today readily embrace the power of woman. For the modern reader, Marie de France's lais are both a reminder of unhappier
times in social history and a tribute to 'girl-power'. And in my opinion as a college student, there couldn't be a better combination of messages to inspire and to empower a young woman in this day and age.

Marie was a gifted writer, navigating the "lais" genre with skill, surprising wit, and compassion for her characters. It's amazing how much she can say in 800 odd lines. One can read these stories as beautifully written bedside table stories, but they are also profound, candid observations on the nature of love, men, women, jealousy and the process of redemption. Marie spends most of her words on plot description, but they are so well chosen that one finds after reading a few that anything she says is deeply connected to the core message of the lais. The stories are not about distant, courtly love; their characters are men and women who requite their love, sometimes suffering consequences, always changing. Marie is unparralleled among Midieval female writers. She reads like Jane Austen.

The Lais of Marie de France provide a fascinating glimpse into the female perspective of Arthurian legends. There is little evidence to identify the true author of this text and that which is presented in the introduction is mostly circumstantial. However, the reversal of gender roles is highly suggestive that the author was indeed a woman. One of the latest additions to this collection is "Lanval". This lai provides a twist on the oft-told story of Lancelot and Guinevere's adulterous affair in King Arthur's court. In this version, Lanval is infatuated with a mysterious, otherworldly figure known solely as the Fairy Mistress. Although he promises to keep his love for her a secret in order to protect her identity, he is compelled to share his secret when propositioned by the queen. Unlike Sir Thomas Malory and Geoffrey of Monmouth's interpretations of the legend, the queen shown here is manipulative and avaricious. When Lanval refuses her advances, she appeals to her husband, the king, to punish the innocent knight for a crime he did not commit. Faced with the possibility of execution, he attempts to summon the Fairy Mistress to verify his claims. Throughout the story it is interesting to note the interactions between the characters and how their role reversals set a precedent for future authors to follow.
Although this particular lai is relatively short, the rich language and descriptive passages add incredible depth to the story. The cost of this edition of The Lais of Marie de France is somewhat inflated, but I highly recommend it for anyone interested in gaining a new perspective on Arthurian legends.

This collection of lais is truly an incredible gem in the world of medieval literature. While almost all of the literature from that time period is credited to male authors, this collection of short stories seems to prove the contrary. Marie's lais paint a different portrayal of the classic Arthurian world to Geoffrey of Monmouth's or Malory's ideal world. In the lais titled "Lanval," there is an obvious feminine twist to the traditional Celtic tale. The role of the Fairy Princess is crucial to understanding this tale as well as understanding the motives behind this piece. Two aspects about this character should be kept in mind when reading this story: her role in her relationship with Lanval and her power struggle with Arthur.

As the story goes, the Fairy Princess chooses Lanval as her lover and rewards him with unimaginable amounts of wealth and prosperity. She is the one who sets conditions and clauses to their relationship and Lanval has no problems with that. Because Lanval rejects Guinevere's advances, Lanval is put on trial. The Fairy Princess comes to Lanval's rescue - a twist on the traditional image of a knight in shining armor - and frees him from Arthur's court. This tale is full of feminine overtones - the reversal of roles in Lanvals' relationship with the Fairy Princess as well as the power struggle between Arthur and the Fairy Princess - that put a new twist on the Arthurian tales. I recommend this book to any medieval literature enthusiast or even to a person who loves to read about King Arthur.

The Lais of Marie de France is an entertaining and educational read from the introduction through the end. In this collection, translated here from the original French poems to English prose, Marie de France captures many different facets of King Arthur's court. For example, the Lai of Lanval can be interpreted to be a criticism of King Arthur and his court. The King is compared to a fairy maiden of the Otherworld who is far superior to him both materially and morally. In fact, both Arthur and his Queen are portrayed very negatively, which is not often seen among Arthurian literature. This particular lai also portrays the ideal of courtly love from a very feminine perspective, which is also somewhat unusual among Arthurian literature.
Similarly unusual, the author of this collection is believed to have been a woman. The introduction does a good job of presenting the evidence to support this claim. It then moves on to show connections between the lais and other literature of that period and to try to characterize the lais to some extent. These aims are successfully reached, making the introduction a valuable addition to this edition.
The introduction is not necessary, however, if the lais are being read purely for pleasure. This is easily done, as they contain the ingredients required for a good read: drama, suspense, conflict, and love. Given their content, these lais are entertaining enough to be read purely for enjoyment. I highly recommend this volume to anyone who is interested in either Arthurian love or merely reading a good collection of engaging stories.

The lais of Marie de France make for interesting modern-day reading. Although the overriding sense of naïveté and innocence that pervades them sets them distinctly apart from today's twenty-first century society, they nevertheless provide a fascinating glimpse into the medieval world of courtly love. Also, despite the great gulfs in time and culture that separate them from today's jaded environment, they retain a certain undeniable charm.

From the perspective of a modern reader seeking to gain insights into the medieval ideal of courtly love, the plots are one of the most notable aspects of the lais. "Guigemar" chronicles the incredible romantic adventure of the knight for whom it is named. He is a young, strong, and handsome knight in search of adventure: "The young man was wise, brave, and loved by everyone." One day, on a hunting expedition, he manages to wound both himself and his horse. Just prior to dying, this bitter animal puts the following curse on him: his wound will never be healed, he tells the notoriously love-weary knight, unless he finds a woman who "will suffer for your love more pain and anguish than any other woman has ever known, and you will suffer likewise for her." Wounded and distraught, Guigemar boards an empty ship that mysteriously sails to a distant land ruled by a jealous king who takes every imaginable precaution to keep his beautiful wife from coming into contact with other men. Despite this difficulty, and in addition to many other trials, Guigemar and this young queen fall deeply in love and eventually wind up together forever in perfect happiness.

"Eliduc" is named after another noble knight who was "courtly, brave, and fierce" as well as the most "valiant in the land." Although he is loyal to his king and loved by him, an envious enemy of Eliduc's manages to convince the king of his disloyalty through a false slander, and Eliduc is expelled from the kingdom. During the exile from his homeland, Eliduc throws in his lot with another king and meets his Guilliadun, his young and beautiful daughter. Although he left a loyal wife back in his homeland, Eliduc then falls madly in love with the maiden - "Love dispatched its messenger who summoned her love to him" -, who likewise loves him in return. A desperate plea from his former lord forces the loyal knight to return to his previous abode, but he leaves his new love only with great sorrow, and the two conjure up a plan to run away together upon his return. True to his word, Eliduc returns and takes Guilliadun away with him, but she is stricken with grief and succumbs to an apparently fatal swoon upon hearing that he is married. Intending to do honor to her memory, Eliduc then keeps the body of his beloved in a church, where he mourns over it daily, until it is safe for burial. This situation is eventually discovered by the knight's wife who, upon the revival of Guilliadun, offers to leave Eliduc in order that the two lovers might live happily ever after together. Her plan is carried out, and she herself founds a monastery, thereby providing a happy ending for all concerned: "Each one strove to love God in good faith and they came to a good end thanks to God."

"Lanval" is an additional lay dealing with yet another knight possessing "valour, generosity, beauty, and prowess." The knight in question is the title character, one of the legendary Knights of the Round Table serving the illustrious King Arthur. Although he is one of Arthur's bravest and most valuable knights, Lanval goes unappreciated both by the king and his own colleagues from the Round Table, due to the envious machinations of his lesser fellow warriors. One day when alone in the meadow, Lanval meets a beautiful, young maiden with apparently supernatural powers, and the pair fall in love with each other. Later, when he is rebuffed by his queen for turning down her sexual advance, he breaks the promise he made to his lover never to speak of their love to anyone by insulting the queen in the following manner: "I love and am loved by a lady who should be prized above all others I know. And I will tell you one thing: you can be sure that one of her servants, even the very poorest girl, is worth more than you, my lady the Queen, in body, face and beauty, wisdom and goodness." The enraged queen then informs Arthur, who vows to have Lanval executed, unless he can defend himself. During his trial, though, his lover appears and saves him, and the two ride off together, presumably into a future of perpetual happiness, despite the inherent ambiguity of the lay's closing lines: "Thither the young man was born and no one has heard any more about him, nor can I relate any more."

As mentioned, one of the most fascinating aspects of the lais is the picture that they give of medieval courtly love; in many ways, they exemplify courtly love as it was understood at the time. For example, the knights in all three stories are exemplars of the ideal medieval knight; they are not only strong, brave and loyal, but also well-spoken, respectful, and knowledgeable in the art of courtship. Marie places these virtues upfront in her narratives, all of which describe their particular heroes in glowing phrases of praise; for instance, she says of Guigemar, "There was no more handsome young man in the kingdom." The various knights in the lais also display virtuosity in the quintessential art of courtship. Again, in regard to this quality, Marie heaps praises upon the knights of whom she writes; to offer but one of many examples, in his first meeting with Guilliadun, Eliduc speaks "With gentle mien, honest expression and very noble demeanour."

Aside from the characters within them, the lais themselves also serve to illustrate the medieval ideal of courtly love. They do this primarily through their plots, which contain many of the conventions typically associated with the genre of the courtly romance, thereby providing present-day readers interested in the subject with a valuable resource. To cite just one example, two of the lais involve adultery, a common element in many medieval tales of courtly love. Also, "Lanval" is set in Camelot - the setting, of course, for many other famous tales from the genre.

Indeed, the fact that "Guigemar" and "Eliduc" both involve adultery illustrates one of the primary differences between the era in which Marie wrote her lais and today. At the time in which they were written, these two lais stood as examples of true and perfect love, despite their adulterous elements. Indeed, Marie offers up her adultery-ridden lais unapologetically, apparently viewing marriage as no barrier to a true and just love; adultery was, after all, a common enough feature of medieval romantic tales. Judged by today's prevailing cultural standards, of course, no love story involving adultery can be "perfect." The adulterous queen in "Guigemar" is likely to be excused, or even pitied, by most modern readers, as she is trapped within a loveless marriage to an overzealous and tyrannical husband. Many readers today, though, are apt to be disturbed by the seemingly cruel and unfeeling manner in which Eliduc treats his wife after falling in love with Guilliadun, as well as the nonchalant and apparently unemotional manner in which she offers to end their marriage: "When the lady saw how they looked, she spoke to her husband and asked him for permission to leave and separate from him."

Unlike some of the other lais, "Lanval" does not feature outright adultery, although it does contain a queen who wishes to commit it; Lanval resists her overtures, but she is not condemned for her actions either in the story or by the narrator. Modern readers who are strongly anti-adultery may well rejoice at its absence in this lay, while also bemoaning the fact that the queen goes unpunished for attempting to engage in it. The adulterous nature of Marie's lais, then, provides a useful starting point for a comparison of the cultural ideals of Marie's time with our own.

Another interesting and noteworthy difference between Marie's lais and the love stories of today is the prominent role that the supernatural plays in the former. This element runs like an undercurrent throughout all of the lais, from the superhuman strength of the knights to the divine beauty of the maidens, but it also rises to the surface overtly in several instances. For example, the damsel who falls in love with Lanval clearly has a variety of supernatural powers. This side of the lais is likely to strike modern audiences in various ways, depending on the subjective literary tastes of the individual readers. Those who enjoy an element of the supernatural in their romantic fiction will find much to like in Marie's lais, and even those who normally do not care for it may be charmed by Marie's method of presentation. Others, though, such as those who prefer realist literature, may find it distasteful; the lack of realism that it entails, along with the generally naïve and cheery nature of the lais, may leave them with a bitter taste that only reinforces the feeling of a great distance between the world of Marie's lais and their own. The same can be said of the lais themselves; many modern-day readers will find the innocent and blissful tales a charming and delightful alternative to the cynical atmosphere of twenty-first century reality, while others will denounce them as hopelessly naïve and unrealistic relics from an era that long ago faded into the past - or, perhaps, never existed at all.

Marie's first line in her first lai reads, "Whoever has good material for a story is grieved if the tale is not well told." What writer would not be? A storyteller as good as Marie de France would have a right to be aggrieved.

Fortunately, translators Glyn Burgess and Keith Busby have raised Marie of France off her pages. Eight hundred years later "her" words help me imagine her personality. By reading her stories I sense her avatar. It speaks energetically, clearly.

Here is Marie as her writing reveals her: a rebellious young woman of independent spirit, a flirt, sought by young men, but not loose. Marie's persona describes an eccentric orbit. She ventures away from the straightened regime of taut, restrictive mores prescribed for noble and gentle women of her day.

She writes, "My name is Marie, and I am from France." The words suggest a small child fearlessly introducing herself to an imposing stranger. We have only that declarative assertion, and know little else of this fine medieval writer. We can add that Marie's written style suggests a good education in or near the Vexin, a strategic county bristling with fortifications, a military and diplomatic shock-absorber set between Normandy and France. My mind's-eye conceives this child being born at the heart's-core of trouble.

There is more. Henry II's consort, Eleanor of Aquitaine, had separated from Henry, setting up her Court of Ladies at Poitiers (1167-74), where she may have stirred up her sons' revolt against their father. Henry took his revenge, raiding Eleanor's court and sending his wife and other noble ladies to exile in England. Marie of France may have been among them. I recall Amy Kelly suggesting, in "Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings," that Marie was exiled for writing subversive, i.e. feminist, verse. Her style suggests she started writing around 1170. (Influenced by Eleanor? At Eleanor's court?) Remember, Marie tells us, "I am from France!" Was she repudiating Henry's Angevin Empire?

Without doubt the furious Henry suspected Eleanor of leading a conspiracy involving women centered around Poitiers. It may have been this Marie whom Henry installed in her exile as the abbess at Shaftesbury in Dorset. I imagine Marie pacing Park Walk along the edge of that high ridge of a town, looking over one of the finest views in England, that of the Blackmore Vale.

Translators Glyn Burgess and Keith Busby assert that Marie de France is the "earliest known French woman poet," and that "her lais are among the finest examples of the genre." A lai is a short romance in which the course of love may run true but never smoothly. Readers soon discover Marie's peerless gift for setting up the bumps in her lovers' tales.

And the authors have a gift for managing Marie's tales so that they impart an image one can feel, of an assertive woman, angry, restless, writing her way through twelfth century misogyny to unwittingly win her own lasting literary fame.

Robert Fripp,
Author of "Power of a Woman. Memoirs of ... Eleanor of Aquitaine"