Essay on Lais of Marie de France

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet – popularly considered by many to be the quintessential love story of all time – is a play that we are all familiar with in one way or another. Whether it be through the plethora of portrayals, adaptations and performances that exist or through your own reading of the play, chances are you have been acquainted with this tale of “tragic love” at some point in your life. Through this universal familiarity an odd occurrence can be noted, one of almost canonical reverence for the themes commonly believed to be central to the plot. The most widely believed theme of Romeo and Juliet is that of the ideal love unable to exist under the harsh social and political strains of this world. Out of this idea emerge two

Throughout the Lais of Marie de France there are several themes presented as central to the various stories. Some of these themes are present in all of the lais. One such example is that of courtly love and it's implications. Courtly love being one of the more prominent themes in all of medieval literature, it is fittingly manifested in all of the lais as well. Another theme present in two of the lais is isolation. The theme of isolation plays a large role in the stories of Guigemar and Lanval. In each of these lais we see isolation as a factor in determining the fates of the central figures. Within each lai isolation is represented on several different occasions, each time having a direct impact on the outcome. These instances of

Although the Lais of Marie de France may seem to be ordinary tales of knights and chivalry, each explores the complicated issues surrounding love, loyalty, and gender. Marie uses four stories in particular to make statements on the relationships between men and women of that time.

Marie de France wrote a story about the theme of a “Great love” even though the “love” displayed in the story cannot co-exist in the real world. Lanval is an outcast in his life, despite his loyalty to King Arthur, his generosity to the people he is not accepted in his world.

In the play `Romeo and Juliet` the writer William Shakespeare uses the theme of love as a main feature to push the story along. Presented are a plethora of variations of love including family love, true love and courtly love. This essay aims to analyse these three types of love chosen.

The conventions of courtly love stem from the precise chivalric code of knights in the Middle Ages and passionate romances of European medieval folklore. Fantastic tales of dauntless knights and their fair damsels, often set in King Arthur’s kingdom

Boom! The door flies open and a handsome knight runs into the room and yells, “Come my lady we must go now, for he is on his way”. The lady jumps to her feet and says “My love whom is on their way?” he responds, “your husband is on the way and he has heard of our romance”. The couple joins hands and quickly runs through the castle hoping that they are not seen. Suddenly the king jumps from a dark shadow, stops the couple in a sudden halt, and says, “Where do you think you are going?” With no response from the lady, the king reaches to his side and pulls a rope that releases a large bucket of acid onto the queen and her secret lover, which eats their bodies flesh within minutes only leaving the two skeletons holding each other’s hands. This

Marie de France lived in a time when social graces were paramount to a good reputation, lordships and to securing good marriages. A woman was considered less valuable if she lost her virginity; a wife was subjected to her feudal lord, father, brother or son after her husband’s death. According to Angela Sandison’s article “The Role of Women in the Middle Ages”, this was because in the Middle Ages the Church and the aristocracy controlled public opinion and the legal system. These authorities of the times believed a woman’s place was in a submissive role to a man. In The Lay of the Nightingale, we will see how this social and religious hierarchy will impact the behaviors of the three people involved.

Ever wondered how love can bring you happiness and pain and make you sane and crazy at the same time. How this emotion can change you and make you accept things you are not used to. How this emotion can overpower you in many ways in which you did not know existed. In Lancelot by Chretien de Troyes, the power of love is a commanding driving force that can dominate a person’s mind, body, and soul and one who is courageous enough to love sometimes undergoes serious consequences. Consequences that are driven from the power of love that harm and cause hardship to the one who is determined to seek love.

To effectively support this argument, it is vital to analyze different aspects of love as discussed by Beauvoir in her account of The Woman in Love. The first basis of this narrative portrays man as a superior being to whom an inferior has to submit. He is a god in his woman’s eyes modeled just a little lower than the angels . While the man occupies his rightful status as a god, the woman is deemed as the worshipper. Both eventually become the other’s prisoner. In this vulnerability, women are ready to submit completely to their husbands whose image they hold in high regard.

In Chaucer’s “Franklin Tale” the plot revolves around a married couple: the knight, Arviragus, his young wife, Dorigen, and a young squire, Aurelius who importunes and attempts to Dorigen. The characters can be said to oscillate between desire and their ego honor which affects what they say and do. Lacan’s definition of desire tells us that we desire for recognition from this “Other.” Our desire is to become what the other person lacks. Duby’s model of courtly love is a concept that focuses on chivalry, nobility and women being at the center. In this paper, I will examine what the story reveals about the relation each character has to his or her desire, how they act in accordance to their desire and the role magic or illusion plays in the plot and how it affect characters’ relation to desire.

In “Guigemar”, the son of Hoel, is a noble man immune to the feelings of love, basically having no romantic interests in the women who come his way. His remaining indifference continues until he wounds a doe, who places a curse on him after he, himself is injured by his own hand. The curse placed upon a man who shows indifference to love causes Guigemar to be quite pessimistic that any woman could love him enough to not only heal him, but suffer for him as well. However, he seeks refuge aboard a ship at the harbor to rest which leads him to the castle of an aged lord and his wife, who fled from the room she was locked inside within the castle. Discovering the nearly dead Guigemar, the lady vows to nurse him back to health with the help of her female companion, but it is under her care that Guigemar is struck with love, overwhelmed with his newly found emotions towards the woman who has his heart. The two lovebirds, confess their feelings and embrace in their love until they are

When asked to envision medieval courts, often images from Game of Thrones or The Tudors come to mind -- maybe even Sir Lancelot and jousting. Yet, these television shows and stories derive their inspiration from a genuine historical context so fascinating and pervasive that nearly 1,000 years later Western culture is still transfixed. French author Chrétien de Troyes, who ironically penned the first romantic depiction of Sir Lancelot, wrote many of the tales that inspire modern pop culture. His stories, particularly that of Cligés written in 1176 AD, though filled with sometimes supernatural, amorous, and scintillating drama, can reveal the political and social undercurrent of the Middle Ages. Ultimately, the passionate characters and events presented in Chrétien de Troyes’ Cligés transcend the romantic realm, manifesting as representations of medieval court and the rapidly evolving concepts of magic and science in the twelfth century. By dissecting Troyes’ characters, specifically Thessala, John, and the Salernitan doctors, one can identify the movements they symbolize. Additionally, understanding Chrétien de Troyes’ position in society and purpose for writing furthers reveals nuances in the plot indicative of the medieval social climate. Essentially, Chrétien de Troyes’ Cligés is reflective of the struggle between new and old ways of interpreting science, medicine, and magical practices as well as the ever shifting social standing of court life.

In Tristan, by Gottfried Von Strassburg, Tristan and Isolde’s love is best characterized as being moral and immoral at the same time. This paradoxical feature is indivisible to their relationship and it appears in various incidents, for example, when Isolde receives the ordeal of hot-red iron and when Isolde and Tristan lie together in a cave with a sword between them.

Stories of true love have been told throughout history. In “The Lias of Marie de France”, translated by Robert Hannign and Joan Ferrante, Marie tells stories of true love. In the two stories of Lanval and Yonec, there are many things that point to the love being a figment of the character’s imagination. In both stories, the characters are depressed and lonely. This leads them to make up someone to love. Both imagined lovers to have many traits that make them seem to real to be true. Additionally, both characters have some boundary that they cross to meet the lover in their dream world. In both instances others seem to see the lover, this is most likely a result of the others knowing the lover is not real. Based on the stories of Lanval and Yonec in “The Lias of Marie de France”, true love is only possible through imagination.