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Lais Bretons (XIIe-XIIIe siècles) - Marie de France et ses contemporains
Dans notre mémoire littéraire, l'apparition des lais narratifs bretons a fait deux fois événement : pour les auditeurs du XIIe siècle, qui en ont fait un succès littéraire – déterminant ainsi la constitution d'un genre qui a fait école – mais aussi pour nous, lecteurs contemporains, qui n'avons cessé, depuis leur découverte, de les éditer, de les traduire, d'en commenter l'énigmatique attrait. En proposant de lire côte à côte les lais de Marie de France et plusieurs lais anonymes, le présent volume voudrait faire apparaître la cohérence d'un corpus constitué sur plusieurs décennies. Choisis pour la richesse des résonances qu'ils offrent avec les lais de Marie, les cinq lais anonymes ici présentés bénéficient d'une édition et d'une traduction nouvelles. Les lais de Marie de France ont été traduits d'après l'édition de Jean Rychner, entièrement revue.
944 pages, Paperback
First published April 20, 2018
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Note: WorldCat is an excellent resource for finding author information and contents of anthologies.
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January 13, 2021
Marie de France XII to XIII century
« Lais Bretons by Marie de France » (1160 – 1215)
“My name is Mary, and I am from France”. This is all we know of her name. It is from a line in one of her Lais.
Even though born in France, she spent most of her life in England. It is clear from her writing that Marie was highly educated and multilingual; this level of education was not available to the common population at this time, so we can infer that she was of noble birth.
She has produced four collections of works, but she is best known for her “Lais of Marie de France”.
This collection of her twelve Lais is the subject of the present edition, which also includes a further five Lais from unknown contemporary authors.
Marie wrote her works in the language of ‘Francien’ sprinkled with vocabulary from Anglo/Norman French. In this edition, a translation into modern French is present on every other page.
My first reaction, when starting to read the book, was that these Lais were to the Bretons what the Sagas were to the Icelanders.
But there are several major differences.
The Sagas of the Icelanders are the written recordings of ancient popular heroic stories carried over time by word of mouth.
Whereas Marie’s Lais are writings based on lyric stories as were sang and accompanied with musical instruments, by troubadours and minstrels at Royal and Aristocratic courts.
They sang of medieval romance, courteous love lyrics, heroic chivalry tales and legends of Celtic, Gallic origin disclosing a fabulous dream world of fairies, shining castles ‘over the lake’, men turning into werewolves and more of the kind.
Marie kept her Lais in a short and condensed way, as they were used by the singers
She succeeded with her style and vocabulary to give these Lais a special charming and even frivolous atmosphere, reflecting an unconstrained ‘joie de vivre’ in her multiple love affairs, several of them in triangular, adulterous situations.
Marie dared to express a feminist position of free female sexuality, in no way different from modern opinions.
Her collection of Lais attracted an immediate outstanding success in reader populations in the Aristocratic and Clerical society. But naturally also, critics from religious and jealous competitor authors.
Marie de France was likely known at the court of King Henry II and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine.
A contemporary of Marie, the English poet Denis Piramus mentions in his Life of Saint Edmund the King, written in around 1180, the Lais of a Marie, which were popular in aristocratic circles.
This work would be a prime choice for readers of authentic medieval authors.
« Lais Bretons by Marie de France » (1160 – 1215)
“My name is Mary, and I am from France”. This is all we know of her name. It is from a line in one of her Lais.
Even though born in France, she spent most of her life in England. It is clear from her writing that Marie was highly educated and multilingual; this level of education was not available to the common population at this time, so we can infer that she was of noble birth.
She has produced four collections of works, but she is best known for her “Lais of Marie de France”.
This collection of her twelve Lais is the subject of the present edition, which also includes a further five Lais from unknown contemporary authors.
Marie wrote her works in the language of ‘Francien’ sprinkled with vocabulary from Anglo/Norman French. In this edition, a translation into modern French is present on every other page.
My first reaction, when starting to read the book, was that these Lais were to the Bretons what the Sagas were to the Icelanders.
But there are several major differences.
The Sagas of the Icelanders are the written recordings of ancient popular heroic stories carried over time by word of mouth.
Whereas Marie’s Lais are writings based on lyric stories as were sang and accompanied with musical instruments, by troubadours and minstrels at Royal and Aristocratic courts.
They sang of medieval romance, courteous love lyrics, heroic chivalry tales and legends of Celtic, Gallic origin disclosing a fabulous dream world of fairies, shining castles ‘over the lake’, men turning into werewolves and more of the kind.
Marie kept her Lais in a short and condensed way, as they were used by the singers
She succeeded with her style and vocabulary to give these Lais a special charming and even frivolous atmosphere, reflecting an unconstrained ‘joie de vivre’ in her multiple love affairs, several of them in triangular, adulterous situations.
Marie dared to express a feminist position of free female sexuality, in no way different from modern opinions.
Her collection of Lais attracted an immediate outstanding success in reader populations in the Aristocratic and Clerical society. But naturally also, critics from religious and jealous competitor authors.
Marie de France was likely known at the court of King Henry II and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine.
A contemporary of Marie, the English poet Denis Piramus mentions in his Life of Saint Edmund the King, written in around 1180, the Lais of a Marie, which were popular in aristocratic circles.
This work would be a prime choice for readers of authentic medieval authors.
March 7, 2026
2.5🌟
« Quand une bonne œuvre est bien connue,
elle est dans sa première floraison,
et quand sa valeur est maintes fois célébrée,
ses fleurs se sont alors épanouies. »
As I remember reading this at the start of this bricky book, I was swaying between excitement for chivalrous glorious adventures and fear of repetitiveness, of dry writing. Even though I am no old French professional, I want to blame the editors for trying to translate what they think is the succinct and brief style of Marie de France: even if it is succinct and brief, it is still poetical and musical; not succinct and brief, but smooth and swift. All of that must have been lost in translation.
« Lais de Marie de France »
Guigemar
Since it was the first one, I was boiling to see stories of chivalry. The starting sequence from the knight's encounter with the white doe to the dreamy-ish trip on the boat to see the lady felt very fairytale-like.
Équitan
It's interesting to see the main characters actually being antagonists driven by the desire to kill for love. Their death in boiled water was hardcore gruesome!
Frêne
It seems like some Œdipus Rex lay rewriting without the incest part. It's heartwarming to see a tree bond between the sisters, but it sadly isn't given much expression.
Bisclavret
I'll give credits to the innovation of this lay, where the werewolf's persona is inverted to being the good guy. His wife is trash, by the way.
Lanval
Thrice, I couldn't contain my laugh when all of the vassals were repeatedly distracted by the arriving women's beauty during the king's trial. It's ridiculous.
Les Deux Amants
This is one of the shorter lays, and the story it paints is extremely beautiful — maybe because of its shortness, for the death of the lovers at the top of the mountain, the scream of the lady at the top of her lungs, the revival of nature at the crack of the potion have something so fantastical and legendary to them.
Yonec
Here is where medieval lays are the equivalent of 21st-century turkish soap operas and bollywood movies.
Le Laüstic
The shortness felt like some beautifully fleeting midnight encounter of lovers across balconies. It barely had time to breathe, and the bird was dead, and out of breath.
Milon
But how tenderly romantic and delicate it is to send letters by the means of a swan! Otherwise, another overly chivalrous story...
L'Infortuné
Well, a lady can enjoy the bravery of four knights; but when Fortune strikes, it loathes excess and leaves her with one alive yet unwell and unable to be brave.
Chèvrefeuille
I got convinced that the shorter the lay, the more subtle and sudden the progression, the imagery. It doesn't feel like the dry five-part narrative in an already dry writing style anymore. On the contrary, it doesn't have time to live, and I would scramble to give it a few, at least a few ounces of life.
Éliduc
This lay was long and weird. I'm so conflicted about its strange, strange ending : who loves who? who is with whom?
« Lais anonymes »
Désiré
Because this lay and the ones forward are not composed by Marie de France, I feared that they would bear too much repetitiveness and similarities. Je me sentais à bout.
Guingamor
Ever since I had read the introduction of the book, I was always confounding between Guigemar and Guingamor. And it turns out the quasi-homophony of the names gave way to an exhausting similarity in the story. But then, that end, as he was taken with no end to the story, seemed quite peculiar for the progression of a normal lay.
Tydorel
If someone told me this was a Grimms' tale, I would almost believe them. This sprightliness preceding gloom, this sombre almost-devilish eeriness of the knight — le chasseur noir, how the son became the father in the depths of that lake, all of it bears some Gothic-Romantic flare to it.
Graelent
Chew up a bit of Guigemar, a lot of Lanval, and you would get this unnecessary rewriting.
Mélion
Now chew up everything about Bisclavret, and you would get a copy-paste even after decimating it to pieces in your mouth and spitting it out.
« Quand une bonne œuvre est bien connue,
elle est dans sa première floraison,
et quand sa valeur est maintes fois célébrée,
ses fleurs se sont alors épanouies. »
As I remember reading this at the start of this bricky book, I was swaying between excitement for chivalrous glorious adventures and fear of repetitiveness, of dry writing. Even though I am no old French professional, I want to blame the editors for trying to translate what they think is the succinct and brief style of Marie de France: even if it is succinct and brief, it is still poetical and musical; not succinct and brief, but smooth and swift. All of that must have been lost in translation.
« Lais de Marie de France »
Guigemar
Since it was the first one, I was boiling to see stories of chivalry. The starting sequence from the knight's encounter with the white doe to the dreamy-ish trip on the boat to see the lady felt very fairytale-like.
Équitan
It's interesting to see the main characters actually being antagonists driven by the desire to kill for love. Their death in boiled water was hardcore gruesome!
Frêne
It seems like some Œdipus Rex lay rewriting without the incest part. It's heartwarming to see a tree bond between the sisters, but it sadly isn't given much expression.
Bisclavret
I'll give credits to the innovation of this lay, where the werewolf's persona is inverted to being the good guy. His wife is trash, by the way.
Lanval
Thrice, I couldn't contain my laugh when all of the vassals were repeatedly distracted by the arriving women's beauty during the king's trial. It's ridiculous.
Les Deux Amants
This is one of the shorter lays, and the story it paints is extremely beautiful — maybe because of its shortness, for the death of the lovers at the top of the mountain, the scream of the lady at the top of her lungs, the revival of nature at the crack of the potion have something so fantastical and legendary to them.
Yonec
Here is where medieval lays are the equivalent of 21st-century turkish soap operas and bollywood movies.
Le Laüstic
The shortness felt like some beautifully fleeting midnight encounter of lovers across balconies. It barely had time to breathe, and the bird was dead, and out of breath.
Milon
But how tenderly romantic and delicate it is to send letters by the means of a swan! Otherwise, another overly chivalrous story...
L'Infortuné
Well, a lady can enjoy the bravery of four knights; but when Fortune strikes, it loathes excess and leaves her with one alive yet unwell and unable to be brave.
Chèvrefeuille
I got convinced that the shorter the lay, the more subtle and sudden the progression, the imagery. It doesn't feel like the dry five-part narrative in an already dry writing style anymore. On the contrary, it doesn't have time to live, and I would scramble to give it a few, at least a few ounces of life.
Éliduc
This lay was long and weird. I'm so conflicted about its strange, strange ending : who loves who? who is with whom?
« Lais anonymes »
Désiré
Because this lay and the ones forward are not composed by Marie de France, I feared that they would bear too much repetitiveness and similarities. Je me sentais à bout.
Guingamor
Ever since I had read the introduction of the book, I was always confounding between Guigemar and Guingamor. And it turns out the quasi-homophony of the names gave way to an exhausting similarity in the story. But then, that end, as he was taken with no end to the story, seemed quite peculiar for the progression of a normal lay.
Tydorel
If someone told me this was a Grimms' tale, I would almost believe them. This sprightliness preceding gloom, this sombre almost-devilish eeriness of the knight — le chasseur noir, how the son became the father in the depths of that lake, all of it bears some Gothic-Romantic flare to it.
Graelent
Chew up a bit of Guigemar, a lot of Lanval, and you would get this unnecessary rewriting.
Mélion
Now chew up everything about Bisclavret, and you would get a copy-paste even after decimating it to pieces in your mouth and spitting it out.
June 19, 2025
c’était délicieuse………. si je n’avais pas eu la pression du PARTIEL j’aurais mis 5 étoiles 3
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews