Marie de France, Lais
I am just finishing up my outline. Will have it posted as a comment in this post in a few minutes. Holly
posted by Holly @ 10:06 AM
4 comments
MAP2006
Quand je pense à tous les livres qu'il me reste à lire, j'ai la certitude d'être encore heureux. -Jules Renard
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MAP6, 31 mai 2005
Marie de France, Lais
Background on Marie and Les Lais
Very little is known about Marie de France, but it is believed she wrote for a French-speaking Norman audience in England, due in part to her use of English words and English place names in the Lais. The best estimate for when she might have written the Lais is some time between 1154 and 1189, during the reign of Henry II, to whom it is thought the Lais were dedicated. Paula Clifford writes in her book, Marie de France: Lais: “The poems themselves lend strong support to the notion that she was familiar with aristocratic life and behaviour, and that she was writing for a so-called courtly, perhaps largely female, audience.”
The sources for Marie’s Lais appear to be primarily the Breton lais (lai means chanson, though in Marie’s hand, it came to be synonymous with conte), none of which have survived. However, it is likely that the subject matter of the Breton lais was drawn from legends from the Celtic tradition (including the Arthur and Tristan stories). Though there is an emphasis on magic and the supernatural in the Celtic tradition, Marie chose to downplay those aspects in her Lais or incorporate them logically into the narrative by combining them with realistic symbols.
Marie was writing during a period when the French chivalric romance (such as adaptations of classical stories and the Arthurian poems of Chrétien de Troyes) was immensely popular. Her Lais, though shorter than the romances, are written in the same verse form, octosyllabic couplets.
Major themes of the Lais
Love. Courtly love. Fatal love. The dilemma of love. Obstacles to love. Love and the supernatural.
Yes, the Lais focus on love. According to Joan Ferrante, “...the kind of love [Marie] is concerned with is not romantic fluff, but mutual commitment and support. It can offer to women relief from the suffering of bad marriages, to men a satisfaction that worldly pursuits do not. But it cannot be self-indulgent or irresponsible.” We will see how she deals with different types of love as we look at each lai in turn. Joan Ferrante has an interesting observation on the manuscript as a whole:
If the order of the lais as they appear in the one complete manuscript is the order established by Marie when she put them together, then she intentionally balanced positive and negative characteristics. The odd lais (first, third, and so on) proclaim the need for love (“Guigemar”), the qualities essential to love – loyalty, generosity, self-sacrifice (“Frêne,” “Lanval,” “Chèvrefeuille”) – and the gifts of love – relief from suffering (“Guigemar,” “Yonec”), progeny (“Yonec,” “Milun”), joy (“Chèvrefeuille”). The even lais condemn and punish the abuse of love for self-interest...The last lai, “Eliduc,” if not so overtly negative, gently shows up the limitations of earthly love and reveals the satisfactions of a disinterested human love and devotion to God. The message that emerges from the twelve lais is that love can offer the greatest rewards and solace in human life, but only to those who deserve them by their selflessness, suffering, courage, and devotion.
Note that Marie deals with adulterous love very dispassionately; she does not consider it amoral.
My take
I enjoyed reading the Lais. I suppose some considered them the “Harlequin romances” of the 12th century, but I found them to be a refreshing change from some of our weightier readings and a relief from the male- and war-dominated ambiance of, say, La Chanson de Roland. I find it very interesting that she offers her primary female characters roles equal to (or in some cases greater than) the male characters.
Sources:
Marie de France, Lais de Marie de France, tr. Laurence Harf-Lancner, Paris: Librarie Général Française, 1990.
Clifford, Paula, Marie de France: Lais, London: Grant & Cutler Ltd., 1982
Ferrante, Joan M., “A Frenchwoman in England Writes for a Norman Court: Marie de France,” in Hollier, Denis (Ed.), A New History of French Literature, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.
As I read Marie’s Lais, I kept trying to pick out which was my favourite one, and failing miserably, since they are all so fascinating in their own ways. They are just so much fun to read! I laughed out loud, for cryin’ out loud, in the middle of a city bus, at the ending to Le Malheureux. (Did anyone else find it hilarious that after the chevalier has complained about his plight, and asked the lady not to moon over his dead companions anymore, she doesn’t change her ways - she just agrees that indeed his story should be named “Le Malheureux” after the poor old sot.) At any rate, it was rather enjoyable. I think this is what Marie had in mind: perpetuating the pleasure of story. As she says in the prologue:
“Lorsqu’un beau fait est répété,
Il commence à fleurir,
Et quand les auditeurs se répandent en louanges,
Alors les fleurs s’épanouissent.” (5-8)
They are emphatically NOT the same story over and over again, which I suspect all of us are tempted to believe about courtly literature from time to time. (And with good reason!) However, I find Marie unique in that she explores many different angles of courtly love.
Many thanks to Holly for breaking these themes down (need for love, qualities essential to love, etc.), and pointing out also that the ORDER is intentional and meaningful.
Yonec was probably the most intriguing to me. It is interesting that when the chevalier appears for the first time (119), he allays her fears by way of a Christian confession of doctrine, a “Credo” (167). I remember learning in my undergrad days that this was because he was in the form of a bird, which is a sort of spirit, which could be good or evil. A simple repetition of a creed apparently sufficed as a way to gain entry to a relationship with the lady.
Also interesting is the continuation of this theme throughout of transformation: her all-too-astute and suspicious husband soon notices “qu’elle a change” (234). Later on, when the bloodied lover is mortally wounded by the jealous husband’s traps, he blames their mutual capture on her “attitude”: “Je vous avais prédit ce qui arriverait, et que votre attitude causerait notre mort.” (325-26). Whatever Marie’s understanding of the tenets of courtly love, they definitely include an ability to disguise one’s emotions, and also hide physically.
That’s all for now. I’ll be checkin’ in to see what you guys discovered.
-A.
One thing that I noticed throughout the Lais was the use of the word 'courtois' or 'courtoise'. This fits with the chapter from Moshe Lazar called Fin'Amor that Abbey and Diana copied for us. In it (p. 65), he says, "One can be courtly,...without loving; but one cannot love without being courtly." He goes on to talk about 'modes' of love, in which one, the 'passionate love' or 'tragic-mythical' mode, is found in some of the Lais. In this type of love, he says, "...their tragic end is the result not of sin and divine punishment but of a consuming passion and the lack of a psychological-social balance (desmezura), which violate the principle of mezura so central to the troubadours' code of courtliness."
It would be interesting to go through the Lais, especially those where love ends badly, and see if the words 'courtois' or 'courtoise' are used to describe the lovers. (I'm not saying I'll do that, mind you, just that it would be interesting...)
H
Thank you, Diana, for weaving in your expertise and research on the women troubadours. I was thinking about your project while reading the Lais, before you even posted, in fact!
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