In Guigemar, Marie de France uses the swift, silent ship that carries the knight Guigemar to and from his beloved lady to symbolize fate and the lack of control humans exercise over their passions and life choices. The ship may seem a positive...

During the Medieval time period, a woman would generally be forced to depend upon a man for her livelihood. However, in the fictional world of courtly love, a 12th century philosophical phenomenon believed by some to have originated as a form of...

The Intricacies of the Court and Lanval's Desire to Escape

In the Anglo- Norman lay Lanval, an eloquent and intricate account of the Arthurian courts, Marie de France develops an array of issues that include the hypocrisies and virtues of the...

Bisclavret is the only lai of Marie de France’s that deals with a couple falling out of love (Creamer 259). The lycanthropic theme is used by the poet as a test of love and respect for one’s husband, as the baron’s wife doesn’t approve of his...

The story of Lanval is an uncommon one for its time. A helpless, outcast knight meets a beautiful, magical woman. The one term of their love, set down by the unnamed woman, is that Lanval can tell nobody about her. When he breaks that rule and...

In both Yonec and Laustic, Marie de France describes tombs that house the unfulfilled love of her characters. The tombs function to preserve the physical bodies of a love that could not be fulfilled during the characters’ lives. In both lais, the...

I consider myself a recovering patriarchal woman. By patriarchal woman I mean, of course, a woman, who has internalized the norms and values of patriarchy, which can be defined, in short, as any culture that privileges men by promoting traditional...

In Medieval times, women were usually forced to be dependent on a man for her safety, prosperity, and guidance. Yet, in Marie de France’s fictional tales of courtly love, men are in fact victims to women’s charm. Men are unable to live without...

If one was asked to name the epitome of medieval English literature, it is very likely that the answer would be Geoffrey Chaucer. Indeed, this world-wide known poet has played a major role in the development of the English language thanks to his...

Among all other feelings, love proves to be one of the most complex emotions humans experience. Usually, people can pinpoint why they feel a certain way. For example, working people are happy when they get paid, but are often sad when they have to...

The Lais of Marie de France give outstanding examples why true love cannot exist in the real world. “Lanval” and “Yonec” both focus on the theme of true love existing only in the imagination because it has no foundations in the human world. True...

The story of Bisclavret is a lais poem, written by Marie De France in the 12th century. The titular character is a knight cursed with the ability to change into a wolf. However, the true monster of this story is made out to be his unfaithful wife....