The Lais Of Marie De France

There are numerous genre’s in literature, but the level of importance and influence on an individual will differ. Exposure to books and stories is especially important for children because it their chance to acclimate themselves to written language and in turn create their own visuals for the toneless words. “Why Fairy Tales Matter: The Performative and the Transformative”, by Maria Tatar contains an ample amount of textual evidence from author’s research into fairytales, as well as writer’s personal experiences with fairytales. Although Tatar supports her claims with evidence, her resources are not concrete, and seems excessive at times. Also, her assertions are weakened by her failure to defend her conclusion against competing beliefs.

Maria Tatar’s “An Introduction to Fairy Tales” discusses the impact on how the stories help guide the children from their younger age. The first five paragraphs of the article mentioned about how the children can overflow with imagination, and can vividly see their reality of desire and also, fear. The fairytales can also corrupt the naïve minds of the child in a way of making them realize the reality of the world is unjustified, and people can be harsh. Moreover, Tatar gives an explanation on how people grow up with the same fairy tales with different versions; which gives an entirely different personal idea. Fairy tales also develop the child’s intellectual mind by reading various kinds of genre.

Given that his stance on the ownership of fairy tales is strikingly different from the prevalent, popular opinion that “establishes fairy tales as national property”(355) or is “thought to reach back like sacred works”(353), by positioning his own belief of “Individual Ownership of Fairy Tales”(362) towards his conclusion, Haase gains a terrific advantage in being able to persuade the reader, since the alternatives, “Revered Place of Folklore”(353), “The Nationalistic View of Folklore”(354), “Vessels of purportedly universal human truths”(358), have all been rendered sufficiently unsound. Had Haase not used this particular stratagem, he would have opened up his essay to a lot of speculation, skepticism, assumptions and even repudiation. If he were to present his case differently, say chronologically tracking the ideas of ownership throughout history, it would be interesting to see whether the inference that a reader drew from the essay or his ultimate acceptance of Haase’s view would be entirely so straightforward. He is also completely humorless while writing about fairytales, failing to inculcate wit, sarcasm, quips, lively phrases, or even scholarly badinage, in any shape or form, which is a rather curious departure from the amusing perception of the subject at hand. This, however,

In the piece “Yours, Mine, or Ours?, Donald Haase discusses on the ownership of fairytales. Fairy Tales originate from folklore, described as traditional art, literature, knowledge, and practices that are passed on in large part through oral communication. With fairytale's being passed down through generations its new ‘authors’ take ownership of them. Ownership impacts the reception of the fairytale and determines how the audience reads and interprets it. Haase discuss how fairytales are suppose to show and tell what is true and what is acceptable in the context it was written in. With fairytales being changed the reader is exposed to a different moral and purpose with its telling. Haase concludes by informing that fairy tales belong to everyone and that we must take

Once upon a time, there was a literary genre commonly know as fairy tales. They were mystical and wonderful and a child’s fantasy. These fairy tales were drastically misunderstood throughout many centuries, however. They endured a hard life of constant changing and editing to fit what the people of that time wanted. People of our own time are responsible for some of the radical changes endured by this undeserved genre. Now, these fairy tales had a young friend named Belle. Belle thought she knew fairy tales very well, but one day she found out just how wrong she was.

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

Authors make use of details or patterns, portions to some prior story to add depth and texture to the story, bring out a theme, lend irony to a statement, and to play with the reader’s deeply ingrained knowledge of fairy tales.

The women described in the Lais of Marie de France often commit traditionally sinful deeds, such as adultery, murder, and betrayal. However, with a few exceptions, the protagonists often end up living happily with their beloved for the rest of their lives. The Lais advocate for situational judgement rather than general condemnation of specific acts, which can be seen through Marie de France’s treatment of sinful heroines.

As a child, I was told fairytales such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs every night before I went to sleep. Fairytales are an adventurous way to expand a child’s imagination and open their eyes to experience a new perspective. Modernizations of fairytales typically relate to a specific audience, such as adolescence, and put a contemporary spin on the old-aged tale. Instead of using whimsical themes heavily centered in nature, the contemporary poems connect with the reader in a more realistic everyday scenario. Also, many modernizations are written in poetic form to help reconstruct a flow in the piece and to develop or sometimes completely change the meaning from that of the original fairytale. Comparing Grimm’s Fairytale Snow White

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

The tradition of telling fairy tales to children effects not only the listener but also the reader. Maria Tatar, in her book Off with Their Heads!, analyzes how fairy tales instill and reaffirm cultural values and expectations in their audience . Tatar proposes that fairy tales fall into three different tale-types: cautionary tales, exemplary stories, and reward- and- punishment tales. These three types portray different character traits as desirable and undesirable. Due to the tale’s varying literary methods it can change the effectiveness of the tale’s pedagogical value. In Tatar’s opinion, all of these tales are similar in the way they attempt to use punishment, reward, and fear to encourage or discourage certain behaviors. In the cautionary fairy tale “The Virgin Mary’s Child”, the use of punishment and fear to discourage certain behaviors is enhanced by the Christian motifs and values employed by the tale. These literary devices encourage the audience to reflect on and internalize the lessons that are presented in the fairy tale.

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

Medieval literature offers insight on gender, class, and race that our generation is still trying to understand. I aim to explore the reason why gender roles in Marie de France’s Lai de Lanval are flipped, and if this particular lai has an underlying political purpose. Marie de France was one of the most significant female writers of the Medieval Ages, and her romance work focuses on women along with their internal motivation rather than heroic acts of men. Her particular style of writing has brought attention to the way she creates her characters and plot. Several of Marie’s characters have interesting qualities, and perform certain actions that have caused the literary realm to take notice. Lanval himself—being the main character—attracts the majority of the attention: why did Marie choose to feminize him? The fairy queen also raises questions of women given masculine qualities, and why her role seemed much more like that of a man in the writings of other writers during Marie’s time. King Arthur and his queen, Guinevere, have a curious relationship and interact with each other—and others—in a manner that deserves a closer look. After viewing the gender roles of each of these characters, I want to discuss the possibility that Marie depicted her characters the way she did to take a political stance. However, before we can delve into the realm of underlying

The story of Eliduc exemplifies the importance of fidelity in love when dealing with adultery. Allowing Eliduc to marry his true love and giving herself fully to god is the most loving and giving thing she could do, this is a prime example of selflessness. This story incorporates two types of selflessness, the love of god and love between man and women. The characters in the love triangle that forms all suffer at one time or another which leads to the question is that why this story ended with true love prevailing and there being happy ending for all involved?

Unlike our modern conceptions of fairy tales, the French peasant tales depicted the harsh realities of their world. Largely devoid of fairy godmothers, goblins, and magic, the tales were deeply rooted in their realities. As revealed in Darnton’s analysis of the folktales, malnutrition, poverty, and exploitation were common themes among the French peasantry. Although many of the tales may seem outlandish to the modern reader, Darnton’s emphasis on historical context, allows the reader to understand the penetrating truths behind these seemingly strange and violent tales. Constantly faced with threats to their survival (i.e. grain shortage, famine, disease, etc.), it is no shock their stories were macabre and violent. Unlike the humorous Italian folktales or the whimsical English tales, the French tales reflected little escapism. Even the characters dreams/wishes, remained rooted on common objects, such as food, clothes, and land. For the French peasantry of the Old Regime, their only dream was