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Topic: Breton lai

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The Lais of Marie de France

Marie de France

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	Encyclopedia: Breton lai
		A Breton lai, also known as a narrative lay or simply a lay, is a form of medieval French and English romance literature.
		Lais are short (typically 600-1000 lines), rhymed tales of love and chivalry, often involving supernatural and fairy-world Celtic motifs.
		The Lais of Marie de France are a series of short narrative poems in Anglo-Norman, generally focused on glorifying the concepts of courtly love by describing the adventures of a certain hero.
	www.nationmaster.com /encyclopedia/Breton-lai (1137 words)

	Lai - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		A Lai was a song form composed in northern Europe, mainly France and Germany, from the 13th to the late 14th century.
		This distinguishes the lai from other common types of musically important verse of the period (for example, the rondeau and the ballade).
		The lai reached its highest level of development as a musical and poetic form in the work of Guillaume de Machaut; 19 separate lais by this 14th-century ars nova composer survive, and they are among his most sophisticated and highly-developed secular compositions.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Lai (274 words)

	§10. Breton Lays. XIII. Metrical Romances, 1200–1500. Vol. 1. From the Beginnings to the Cycles of Romance. ...
		“Breton lays” have been mentioned; the name meant for the English a short story in rime, like those of Marie de France, taken from Celtic sources.
		But the Breton lays are nearer than other romances to the popular beliefs out of which romantic marvels are drawn, and they retain something of their freshness.
		There is nothing wrong in the description of it as a “Breton lay,” for it is wholly such a tale as the Bretons, and many other people, might have told without any suggestion from Greek or Latin.
	www.bartleby.com /211/1310.html (354 words)

	The Lais of Marie de France - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Composed in the late 12th century, the Lais are notable for the individuality of their characters and the vividness of their descriptions — both hallmarks of the emerging literature of the times.
		Although only one of the Lais revolves around the court of King Arthur, it is possible that the same author commissioned Chretien de Troyes to write The Knight of the Cart, the first tale describing the adventures of Sir Lancelot.
		In any case, Marie de France's Lais did help to form the environment which later came to be associated with Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/The_Lais_of_Marie_de_France (203 words)

	Breton lai - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		The earliest Breton lais to survive in writing are probably The Lais of Marie de France, thought to have been composed in the 1170s by Marie de France, a French poet living in England in the late 12th and early 13th century.
		The earliest written Breton lais were composed in a variety of Old French dialects, and some half dozen lais are known to have been composed in Middle English in the 13th and 14th centuries by various English authors.
		Lay le Freine, a translation of Marie de France's 'Le Fresne'
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Breton_lai (472 words)

	Breton lai (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		The earliest surviving Breton lais are those of Marie de France, aFrench woman poet who lived in the late 12th and early 13th century.
		Through Marie's words we know of earlier lais of Celtic origin, morelyric in style, sung by Breton minstrels, on which she based her writings - but we haveno surviving records of those.
		Though the first Breton lais were written in Anglo-Norman French,numerous lais have also been composed in middle English in the 13th and 14th centuries byvarious English authors.
	www.therfcc.org /breton-lai-106570.html (140 words)

	Day18-Tuesday
		The concept of "amour courtois," or courtly love, was at the heart of most romances, and the development of the Breton lai was strongly influenced by the exaggerated attitude toward love and chivalry that was expressed in the courtly love tradition.
		The lai was preceded as a popular form among the Norman nobility by the long continental romance, such as that written by Chretien de Troyes in France during the late twelfth century.
		Most romances centered on the concept of "amour courtois," or courtly love, and the development of the Breton lai was strongly influenced by the exaggerated attitude toward love and chivalry that was expressed in the courtly love tradition.
	faculty.virginia.edu /schoolhouse/WP/Week11-Tues.html (806 words)

	Breton lay -- Encyclopædia Britannica
		The earliest lay narratives were written in the 12th century by Marie De France; her works were largely based on earlier Breton versions thought to have been derived from Celtic legend.
		The lais combined realistic and fairy-tale elements, and their author was skillful in the analysis of love problems and...
		During the late 19th century, Jules Breton was one of France's most famous painters, acclaimed for his rural landscapes of peasants at work in the fields.
	www.britannica.com /eb/article-9016383 (733 words)

	Marie de France (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Marie de France, whose identity is still unknown, although she is surmised by many to be Marie, daughter of Geofrey IV of Anjou who was the father of Henry II, is the first main composer of works distinguishable as part of the genre of the Breton lay.
		Marie's Breton lay was a short romance, between one hundred and a thousand lines, unlike the courtly romances which stretched to several thousand lines.
		The supernatural shows itself whenever the fairies are mentioned, for example that they are unseen by the guards waiting with Heurodis in the orchard, their ever-light realm in the center of a hill, and the living but mutilated captives in the courtyard.
	gondolin.hist.liv.ac.uk /~azaroth/university/orfeo/node13.html (692 words)

	Marie de France
		Marie's Breton lai was a short romance, between one hundred and a thousand lines, unlike the courtly romances which stretched to several thousand lines.
		Marie de France's identity remains obscure, but it is clear that she was a woman of French origin writing in England in the later decades of the twelfth century, widely educated, and in touch with the royal court.
		This is only one of Marie’s dozen lais; the others in her collection (including one on the Tristan legend) view love from other points of view, rendering a very kaleidoscopic picture of the relationships of men and women, of individuals and society, and of power and authority in her time.
	faculty.winthrop.edu /kosterj/ENGL512/Marie.htm (1379 words)

	Celts and Cymry: Brittany (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Several of these Lais were translated into French verse in the thirteenth century by a poetess named Marie de France, resident at the court of the English monarchs of the house of Plantagenet, to one of whom, probably Henry the Third, her Lais are dedicated.
		The Lai du Fresne was translated into English; and from the Lai de Lanval and Lai de Graelent--which last by the way is not in the Harleian Collection--Chestre made his Launfal Miles, or Sir Launfal Chaucer perhaps took the concluding circumstance of his Dream from the Lai de Eliduc.
		The hero of that Lai differs not in point of power from these ladies, and as he is a real man, with the power of assuming at will the shape of a bird, so it is likely they were real women, and that it was in the bird-shape they entered the chambers of their lovers.
	www.allstarz.org /religioustext/neu/celt/tfm/tfm165.htm (719 words)

	Arthurian Women
		Dahut/Ahes was originally a Breton sea goddess, though later accounts say that she had died when the sea had flooded Ys, or that she had being transformed into a mermaid.
		She was generally known as the Breton Isolde or Isolde of the White Hands, to distinguished from her Irish counterpart and rival – Isolde the Fair.
		However, the Breton Isolde, who knew of the signal arrange between Tristan and the Irish Isolde, told her husband that a ship had fl sail, indicating that Isolde of Ireland was not coming, to heal his wounds.
	www.timelessmyths.com /arthurian/women.html (10332 words)

	Armorican Connections
		Today, the Welsh and Breton are not mutually comprehensible, though the two languages were historically linked because of the migration of the Britons.
		According to the Breton source, the poet Marie de France had translated Breton songs, known as lais, which one had mentioned the Queen Guinevere's infidelity.
		In the 13th century, there was a Breton lais, titled Graelent, where the identity of the author is unknown.
	www.timelessmyths.com /celtic/armorican.html (5871 words)

	Society, the Breton Lay and the Franklin's Tale (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		I propose that the reason for the prominence of the social context here lies in Chaucer's conscious choice of the Breton lai as a genre for this tale, and for his care in observing the conventions of the form throughout.
		Chaucer is far too careful a worker to use the term Breton lay simply to evoke a romantic subject and a geographical background.
		He was well aware of the ways in which the lay departed from romance conventions and used them fully and skillfully, embroidering in the same way, although for a different purpose, that he did conventions of the metrical romance in Sir Thopas.
	www.geocities.com /CollegePark/Hall/1170/chaucerhtml/silber.html (395 words)

	Guide to Verse Forms - Lai (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		The lai is a form of French origin, even more ancien than the virelai ancien (which evolved from it).
		It is not to be confused with the Breton lay, a quite different form of which Chaucer's Franklin's Tale is an example; or the lay, a term sometimes used for a short historical ballad, such Sir Walter Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel; or with the word lay used simply to mean a song.
		The lai was an ancestor of both the virelai ancien and the virelai nouveau.
	www.noggs.dsl.pipex.com /vf/lai.htm (422 words)

	Literary Terms and Definitions B (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Common traits of the ballad are that (a) the beginning is often abrupt, (b) the story is told through dialogue and action (c) the language is simple or "folksy," (d) the theme is often tragic--though comic ballads do exist, and (e) the ballad contains a refrain that is repeated several times.
		BEL INCONNU ("The Fair Unknown", from Breton French le bel inconnu): a motif common to fairy tales, folklore and medieval Romance in which the protagonist's identity remains unknown until some suitably dramatic moment.
		The term is related to British "Briton." The Bretons may be responsible for carrying Arthurian legends into France, where they influenced Chretien de Troyes and other continental writers.
	guweb2.gonzaga.edu /faculty/wheeler/lit_terms_B.html (3069 words)

	chaucer3.html
		The issue of genre here, which is reflected in Chaucer's decision to introduce a Breton Lai as opposed to the open-ended, and even endless, frame-romance half-told by the Squire, is one that must be kept separate from issues of content.
		The fact that Chaucer may have chosen a Breton Lai for the Franklin's Tale, a genre choice reflecting an out-of-fashion type, in order to undercut contemporary court standards can be seen in the fact that he intentionally violates at least one significant convention of the form.
		Kathryn Hume states that most Breton Lais use magical conventions for plot development or resolution which are "accomplished through the innate power of faerie beings" or that the magic events occur without any justification at all (370).
	www.geocities.com /Athens/Delphi/9976/chaucer3.html (9164 words)

	Breton Lais as a Genre (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Like modern film genres such as the horror movie or the science fiction movie, genres of popular medieval literature often were flexible and admitted a great deal of variation.
		Since the Breton lai is a species of popular vernacular romance, rather than a formal Latin work, almost any literate medieval person probably would be familiar with in one of its many varieties.
		6) All medieval Breton lais are composed in rhymed verse, but in the twentieth century, Guy de Maupassant, an author born in Brittany, wrote many short prose fictions which met the first, third, fourth and fifth criteria.
	faculty.goucher.edu /eng240/breton_lais_as_a_genre.htm (234 words)

	Sir Orfeo as a Breton Lay (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Sir Orfeo is one of the eight poems written in Middle English that claim to be a Breton Lay.
		The distinction for the grouping is based on the presence of a four stress couplet in the first, and its absence in the second.
		The Lyric Lay versus the Narrative Lay of Marie de France
	gondolin.hist.liv.ac.uk /~azaroth/university/orfeo/node11.html (152 words)

	Marie de France
		1154-1189); she is surmised by many to be Marie, daughter of Geofrey IV of Anjou who was the father of Henry II lai, poetic and musical form popular among the poets (trouvères) of northern France; long poems with rhymed stanzas of 6-16 lines, 4-8 syllables/line.
		Breton lai (or lay) short, rhymed romance supposedly practiced by Breton storytellers; often include elements of the supernatural, chivalry, influence of classical and Celtic mythology (land of faerie).
		With a terseness and indirection typical of her lais, Marie shows women as property in the king's gift, knights forgotten when their wealth runs out, and the perversion of judicial process.
	faculty.winthrop.edu /kosterj/engl310h/marie.htm (850 words)

	Sir Orfeo: Introduction
		As with many Breton lays, this narrative recreates folklore motifs: the journey to the Otherworld, the man who loses his wife/lover, the rash boon, the exile-return pattern, and the testing of the loyal steward.
		The lay creates a double narrative in which the loss of queen precipitates the loss of the kingdom, and the private recuperation of the queen precipitates the public recuperation of the kingdom.
		It is also the one object which is shared by both character and poet; it bridges the fictional world of the lay and the actual world of the lay minstrel.
	www.lib.rochester.edu /camelot/teams/orfint.htm (3672 words)

	English 228 Class bibliography
		In the case of the Franklin's Tale, the author states that it could "belong to the chivalric group" or the "Breton Lais".
		Spending a little more discussion on love and honor, Phillips makes the general claim of the tale being about what happens after the happily ever after part of a marriage and how the fl rocks support this idea of marital distress.
		She relates the tale to those of Marie de France; magic and the mystic play some part and the portrayal of extramarital love as the beginning of a new relationship and not of moral shortcoming.
	students.washington.edu /jengd/228w4/228biblio/frank.htm (1621 words)

	The Romance Tradition: Folklore 113 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		As always, a complete set of site navigation options is available at the bottom of this page.
		Controversy over Biketâs Lai du Cor (humorous): not solemn, elevated.
		Lai du Cor interesting since men try object instead of women.
	www.smu.edu /arthuriana/teaching/lecture_folklore_malcor.html (227 words)

	math lessons - Marie de France
		Her written works include 12 "Breton lais" (or lays), the "Ysopet" fables, and the Legend of the Purgatory of St. Patrick.
		As the wife of Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine was well known to be a patroness of troubadors and other artists, it seems logical to assume that Marie de France was a member of their court.
		Hoepffner, Ernest "The Breton Lais" in Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, Roger S. Loomis (ed.).
	www.mathdaily.com /lessons/Marie_de_France (239 words)

	Breton lai - Encyclopedia, History, Geography and Biography
		Breton lai - Encyclopedia, History, Geography and Biography
		This page was last modified 23:58, 14 November 2005.
		This encyclopedia, history, geography and biography article about Breton lai contains research on
	www.arikah.com /encyclopedia/Breton_lai (454 words)

	Breton Lai (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		The poetic form of the Lao usually has several stanzas, none of which have the same form.
		Towards the end of its development in the 14th century, some Lao s repeat stanzas, but usually only in thelonger examples.
		There is one very late example of a ai, written to mourn the defeat of the French at the battle of Agincourt (1415), (Lay de la guerre, by Pierre de Nesson) but nomusic for it survives.
	www.thesonars.com /web/42039-breton.lai.html (292 words)

	Sir Orfeo (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-20)
		Sir Orfeo (c.1325) is the Ovidian story of Orpheus and Eurydice in Hades, probably via an unknown French source and Celtic legends.
		It's considered the best Breton lai in English and a copy may have been seen, or even owned, by Chaucer.
		A Breton lai has the same concerns and conventions of romance but is simply shorter -- a tale one can take in one sitting.
	www.wsu.edu /~delahoyd/medieval/orfeo.html (191 words)

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