The Lais of Marie de France

The actual name of the author, now known as Marie de France, is unknown; she adopted this nom de plume from a line in one of her published works: "Marie ai num, si sui de France," which translates as "My name is Marie, and I am from France. Common suggestions for the identity of this 12th-century poet are Marie of France, Countess of Champagne; Marie, Abbess of Shaftesbury and half-sister to Henry II, King of England; Marie, Abbess of Reading; Marie I of Boulogne; Based on evidence from her writings, it is clear that, despite being born in France, she spent much of her life living in England.

Marie de France's Lais prefigured Arthurian romance by featuring courtly love, knights, and the supernatural. Her writings also provide a distinctly female perspective, questioning the values of male-centered chivalry. By establishing early versions of these elements, her work, such as Lanval, laid the groundwork for later, more complex Arthurian narratives by introducing foundational characters and themes that would be further developed in the 12th and 13th centuries.

Very exciting to kick off our Arthurian cycle. We'll read all of the major works and decide together if we want to fill in some minor Arthurian works and histories. I'm posting this for Tuesday, to avoid a meeting on Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

We decided to revisit the Lais a second time. Let's consider them all fair game to discuss but we won't focus on the two long poems we spent the most time on in the first meeting (Guigemar, Bisclavret). So take good notes, and we'll vote at the start of the meeting to whittle down to 5-6 poems we want to discuss (from all of the Lais except for the two mentioned above).

Many suggested to read these in a verse version. Please post links to good editions in the comments here.

If you want a prose version:
All of Marie de France's Lais are contained within this Penguin Classics volume
https://a.co/d/3qnx9kT

Guigemar
Equitan
Le Fresne
Bisclavret
Lanval
Les Deux Amanz
Yonec
Laustic
Milun
Chaitivel
Chevrefoil
Eliduc

Here is a link to her writing on Gutenberg:
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/11417/pg11417.txt