This new companion to the works of Marie de France offers fresh insights
into the standard critical debates.
Marie de France is the author of some of the most influential and
important works to survive from the middle ages; arguably best-known for
her Lais, she also translated Aesop's Fables (the Ysopë), and wrote the
Espurgatoire seint Patriz (St Patrick's Purgatory), based on a Latin
text. The aim of this Companion is both to provide information on what
can be gleaned of her life, and on her poetry, and to rethink standard
questions of interpretation, through topics with special relevance to
medieval literature and culture. The variety of perspectives used
highlights both the unity of Marie's oeuvre and the distinctiveness of
the individual texts.
Aftersituating her writings in their Anglo-Norman political, linguistic,
and literary context, this volume considers her treatment of questions
of literary composition in relation to the circulation, transmission,
and interpretation ofher works. Her social and historical engagements
are illuminated by the prominence of feudal vocabulary, while her
representation of movement across different geographical and imaginary
spaces opens a window on plot construction.Repetition and variation are
considered as a narrative technique within Marie's work, and as a
cultural practice linking her texts to a network of twelfth-century
textual traditions. The Conclusion, on the posterity of her oeuvre,
combines a consideration of manuscript context with the ways in which
later authors rewrote Marie's works.
Sharon Kinoshita is Professor of Literature, University of California,
Santa Cruz; Peggy McCracken is Professor of French, Women's Studies, and
Comparative Literature, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
