the Lays of Marie de France

[silverflight8]

I read twelve of Marie de France's lays yesterday. I read the version by Burgess and Busby (published by Penguin, 1999), who translate them into (modern 1) English prose. If you're not familiar, they're lays attributed to a twelfth-century author, who lived in England (hence the appellation of "from France"). She is quite upfront about where she

Comments

[mezzogiorno]

Something I've begun to associate with medieval writing is the bald assertion, when setting up characterization, that the protagonist of this story is a worthy, humble, generous, good, athletic and skilled.

That is the common theme, for noble characters certainly. I was talking about this with my supervisor the other day, as he was teaching a course on it and found it difficult to find much variety as either you're a noble man and woman and the man courts the noble lady and everything's beautiful, or you're a shepherd and a shepherdess and she gets raped. The rich have beautiful love, the poor have rape, and that's pretty much...it.

[silverflight8]

Really? I've read fabliaux and while I don't think they were romanticized in the same way (they kind of deconstructed courtliness in general) they also had stories about domestic strife and wives doing their own thing (often cheating under their husbands' noses >.>) I don't know. There were authors definitely with axes to grind but a lot of ordinary people with relationships too.

[dhampyresa]

Werewolf husband is Bisclavret, right? I love that one!

You should definitely sound out old French! Especially anything pre-Ordonnance de Villers-Cotteret (1539), since they wrote down how the words sounded, and not much else. I still think it's (barely) readable, though, even if there are places where you can see the breton influence (eostig, anyone?).

[silverflight8]

Yeah, Bisclavret! It's a really juicy revenge story.

Actually the other thing about the lays is that the protagonist names are so alien to me. I'm almost used to the Germanic ones (Hilde-whatever this, Gusdjkj that). But Bisclavret? (faintly ridiculous) Milun? Chaitivel? (too many i's.) Guigemar? Even things like "Chlotar" (of Neustria) look weird to me.

Yeah...I think the Breton influence is probably why the names too. It's surprising since a lot of English names are of French provenance (or at least came through Norman French), especially women's names.

[dhampyresa]

To me, Bisclavret, Milun, Chaitivel and Guigemar read like last names, but Chlotar is a first name, in the vein of Clothilde.

You better not tell the Bretons they're like the Normans, omg, are you insane?

Edit: Having looked it up, Guigemar is a form of Guyomarch (or Guyomarc'h), which is definitely a breton last name, while the others only seem to exist in the lays. (Btw, any breton name ending with a ch/c'h ends with a r sound, not a sh sound. It's one of those ways that breton french is subtly different from parisian french.)

[silverflight8]

Interesting! I usually just assume they're first names and that they don't have a last name. Though now that I think of it this falls down when you have nobility who do signify familial connections through last names...

No no, I meant the other way! That they're unfamiliar to English-speaking me because the names are Breton, because English absorbed French names from Norman French :)

Hmm, interesting. When you say r, do you mean /x/ or like /ʁ/? (Though honestly I don't think I can say the distinction myself >.>)