Lais of Marie de France Essay

Love and Marie de FranceAccording to American mythologist, Joseph Campbell, The greatest make admire was during the Medieval Ages, when dire hearts produced a romantic passionateness that transcended lust (Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with carte du jour Moyers 2001). The Lais of Marie de France argon primarily relate with this radical of chicanespecifically, courtly have it off amongst a man and a woman. Courtly bask, a union modeled after the feudal consanguinity between a knight and his liege lord, became a popular conventionalism in the 12th century (Backgrounds to Romance Courtly Love). alternatively of proving loyalty to a lord, the man would have to sanction his distinguish to a woman. Marie de France, however, focuses not just on the idea of love, but also on the differing pleasings of love that existed in medieval society. She recognizes love as a surprise that cannot be avoided and that can be executed correctly or wrong not all love is equal. Mar ie begins her collection of lais with the write up of Guigemar, a noble knight who is cursed with the task of finding true love to fix a physical injury.This lay introduces two types of love selfish and unselfish. narcissistic love is not courtly love. It lacks devotion and true loyalty. It lacks suffering and self-denial. Marie de France portrays this kind of love in the nonagenarian husband of the woman whom Guigemar loves. The man locks his married woman away in an enclosure guarded by a unsexed man. By doing this, the husband shows a mean, limited devotion to his wife by chance even worse, he limits her ability to experience true love. This kind of love does not last in fact, the husband is cuckolded when his wife has a year-long contact with Guigemar. He is made a fool, the dupe of love. Guigemar, however, in contrast to the old husband, practices selfless love. He is kind and noble, and, although he suffers from his physical wound, the pain of love is keener Love had n ow pierced him to the quickfor the lady had wounded him so deeply(De France, Marie. The Lais of Marie de France. Trans. Glyn S. Burgess and Keith Busby London Penguin Group, 1986.Print p.48). This type of love most close resembles courtly love. Guigemar endures severe anguish to please his beloved, and his undying love inspireshim to prove himself to her. This lay provides a good example of what Marie de France considers wrong and right in love. We see another selfish love in the story of Bisclavret, a man with a werewolf alter ego who is betrayed by his adulterous wife. Ironically, although her husband is physically a beast, the real beast, as portrayed by Marie de France, is the wife, who not only betrays him, but also marries another man. She is selfishly concerned with her physical desires, something Marie de France considers ignoble and far worse than the jealousy displayed in the story of Guigemar.The selfish love in this story is inspired by intimate desire, a desire that Ma rie de France sees as a threat to selfless love. egotistical love is again shown in the lay of Les Deux Amanz, in which a four-year-old man has to carry his beloved to the top of a mountain without dropping in order to prove his worthiness to her father. This seems to be an act of love, but, in fact, when the woman begs her lover to take a potion that will help him orbital cavity the top, he reveals another, vainer, motivation These people would shout at us and deafen me their noise(Burgess and Busby 84). In other words, his desire to reach the mountaintop is incite at least in part by a pauperism to prove himself to others, and less by the desire to faithfully perform a trial for his beloved. The noble purity of courtly love is not present. Characters demonstrating pure, selflesseven self-denyingdevotion are portrayed throughout the lais as examples of true love. In the story of Eliduc, a brave, loyal knight is compel to find a new lord in another demesne and temporarily le ave his wife, Guildeleuc. Although Eliduc meets a new love (Guilliadun), he remain faithful to his wife, demonstrating loyalty, suffering, and therefore a more(prenominal) pure kind of love.He finally marries Guilliadun, but only after Guildeleuc decides to give herself up to deity and leave Eliduc. By letting Eliduc marry his true love, Guildeleuc also shows love in its most giving form, but in this case it is a truly spiritual love. This story thus displays two types of selfless love represented by each of his wives love of God and the love between a man and a woman. Significantly, at the end of the lay, He rigid his beloved lady with his former wife, by whom she was received honorably as a sister, . . . (Burgess and Busby 126). This suggests that pure love can take twain a spiritual and worldly form. Central to the Lais of Marie de France, then, is courtly love. While her lais are idealistic in their portrayal of loyaltyand romantic chivalry, historically, marriages among th e nobility were collected and practical (Joseph Campbell). Troubadours began to introduce stories of interpersonal relationships and the possibility of romantic love.Although this kind of love directly contradicted the views of the church, it inspired people to take matters of love and relationships into their own transfer (Joseph Campbell). This is what Marie de France wants to inspirethe universal knowledge of love and how imperative an aspect it stay in society. The idea is important enough to her to make her text more accessible to society. She begins her prologue by stating When a truly beneficial thing is hear by many people, it then enjoys its first blossom, but if it is widely praised its flowers are in full bloom(Burgess and Busby 41). She wishes to share her insights about love to everyone, not simply to write inaccessible stories available only to philosophers or the learned.Works CitedBackgrounds to Romance Courtly LoveJoseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill M oyers 2001.De France, Marie. The Lais of Marie De France. Trans. Glyn S. Burgess and Keith Busby. London Penguin Group, 1986. Print.