Marie de France

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Standard Name: Marie de France
Birth Name: Marie
Indexed Name: Marie de France
It is making an assumption to argue that a single individual composed the body of work traditionally attributed to someone whom modern readers have called Marie de France . But one or possibly more women named Marie, writing in the French language in twelfth-century England, composed lais (narrative poems), fables, and a prose saint's life (this last work in translation). Her work was influential for Middle English literature, and her life-story was an inspiration to women writing in the early nineteenth century.
Marie de France, from an illuminated manuscript by Richard of Verdun. She sits writing (apparently with both hands at once) in an architectural setting, wearing a white hood and mantle over blue sleeves. Bibliothèque Nationale.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Intertextuality and Influence Mary Matilda Betham
Besides its paraphrases, or abstracts, or pastiches of Marie 's own poems (and notes explaining that, for instance, the existence of female troubadours is documented historical fact), MMB offers here a long poem which makes...
Occupation Edna St Vincent Millay
ESVM now cast around for work, possibly on stage. She sent out poems to magazines, often fruitlessly. She earned a little by acting with the Provincetown Players from December 1917, building on her long experience...
Author summary Mary Matilda Betham
MMB , writing during the Romantic period, had a vocation as a poet which she took very seriously and which was recognised during her lifetime by positive reviews and the respect of more famous poets...
Textual Production Mary Matilda Betham
Matilda Betham published The Lay of Marie , A Poem, dedicated to Lady Bedingfield and advertising itself as from a diss. by G. de la Rue on Marie de France, and abstracts of her lays.
Lamb, Charles, 1775 - 1834, and Mary, 1764 - 1847 Lamb. The Letters of Charles and Mary Anne Lamb. Editor Marrs, Edwin J., Jr, Cornell University Press, 1975, 3 vols.
3: 236
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Theme or Topic Treated in Text Julia Kavanagh
In her preface JK explains her interest in the rise of the novel and argues that novels have become the teachers for good or for evil of many; their power can be exalted or deplored—it...

Timeline

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Texts

Marie de France,. The Lais of Marie de France. Translators Burgess, Glyn Sheridan and Keith Busby, Penguin, 1986.
Burgess, Glyn Sheridan, and Marie de France. The Lais of Marie de France: text and context. Manchester University Press, 1987.