The Lais of Marie de France all stories
Prologue –Marie’s prologue to the twelve lais
Equitan — a story of courtly adultery which develops into disaster
Le Fresne–a version of “patient Griselda” in which a young wife’s humility is rewarded.
Bisclavret –the werewolf and his wife
Lanval–one of King Arthur’s knights finds a fairy mistress
Yonec–an abused wife finds a fairy lover
Laustic–an adulterous love proves short-lived
Chaitivel –Can a woman love four men at the same time? Can a man love a woman after he has been castrated?
Chevrefoil –the perfect understanding between Tristan and Isolde.
We know nothing about Marie de France. For various reasons, it’s thought that her twelve Lais date from around 1170, that their author was a woman named Marie who also wrote a rhymed collection of Aesop’s Fables (or rather of an expanded medieval version of these fables) and one longer poem, the Purgatory of St. Patrick. She may have been an aristocratic woman, perhaps a nun, living in England but “from France,” as she tells us in the Fables. She claims to have been translating the Lais from Breton or possibly Welsh (“British”), the Fables from English, and she knew Latin as well. The only one of her sources that survived is the Latin one for the Purgatory.
Marie’s Lais were read in her own time; her French is “easy” (a widely-read Anglo-Norman literary language) and the poems are relatively short (the longest is only about a sixth as long as the verse romances being written at the same time by Chrétien de Troyes); readers usually seem to have read them in the origianl, though they were translated, for example, into Old Norse and read in Iceland.
Marie’s language is Anglo-Norman, the dialect spoken among the aristocracy of England and large parts of Northern France; she was part of a generation of writers (notable among them Chretien de Troyes) who were in the process of inventing the French verse romance.
From: https://people.clas.ufl.edu/jshoaf/marie_lais/
Women's Voices in the Medieval Period
Religious Writing for and by women
Some of the most important early Middle English writing was directed towards religious women (because they needed to learn about their faith but couldn't read Latin). Some of the most important late Middle English religious writing is by women and is heavily visionary (women couldn't be bible exegetes, but they could have visions and could claim divine inspiration). Religious women also frequently lived physically enclosed lives in anchorholds and convents in the Middle Ages (because the control of their bodies was a key concern and anxiety). We'll read some texts where several of these features intersect: Ancrene Wisse and treatises from the Katherine group (early Middle English spiritual guidance for anchoresses; we'll read these in Modern English translation), Julian of Norwich's Revelation of Divine love (viewed from a modern perspective as the most renowned mystical text of the late Middle Ages), the Book of Margery Kempe (Margery travelled all over Europe on pilgrimage, preached and taught publicly, infuriated many, and was interrogated by the church authorities for alleged heresy), and selected female saints' Lives (virginity and sexuality are key concerns here).
The Revelation of Divine Love of Julian of Norwich. The whole text can be read here: https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/crampton-shewings-of-julian-norwich For the extracts that we'll be studying in class, please use this link: Julian of Norwich extracts.
Extracts from The Book of Margery Kempe. The full text is available here: https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/staley-the-book-of-margery-kempe Please read the Prologue, chs 1-7, 11, 21-22, 26-31, 35-36, 52-55, 79-81, 88-89. For a Middle English version of these extracts, using the TEAMS text, but increasing the text size, see: Margery Kempe Middle English extracts (you will have to consult the full text for footnotes, glosses etc.). For a modernisation of the same extracts, see here: Margery extracts.
Middle English Female Saints' Lives: a selection of female saints' lives from https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/publication/reames-middle-english-legends-of-women-saints The lives in question from the TEAMS edition are The Stanzaic Life of St Margaret of Antioch, The Stanzaic Life of St Katherine of Alexandria, and Osbern Bokenham's The Life of St Anne. I would also like you to read Bokenham's short prologue to his Life of St Mary Magdalene. The extract is available as a scan here: Bokenham's Prologue to the Life of St Mary Magdalene.