Editing Marie de France (section)

==Breton lais==
{{main|Lais of Marie de France|Breton lai}}
Breton lais were certainly in existence before Marie de France chose to recast the themes that she heard from Breton minstrels into poetic narratives in Anglo-Norman verse, but she may have been the first to present a "new genre of the lai in narrative form."<ref>Whalen, Logan E, p&nbsp;63</ref> Her lays are a collection of 12 short narrative poems written in eight-syllable verse that were based on Breton or Celtic legends, which were part of the oral literature of the Bretons.<ref>Webb, Shawncey J. "Marie de France." Reference Guide to World Literature. Ed. Sara Pendergast and Tom Pendergast. 3rd ed. Vol. 1: Authors. Detroit: St. James Press, 2003. 658-659. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 8 February 2015.</ref> The lais of Marie de France had a huge impact on the literary world.<ref>Burgess, Glyn S., and Busby, Keith, 1986, p&nbsp;11: "[A twelfth century poet-contemporary of Marie wrote:] Marie's poetry has caused great praise to be heaped on her and it is much appreciated by counts and barons and knights who love to have her writings read out again and again."</ref> They were considered a new type of literary technique derived from classical rhetoric and imbued with such detail that they became a new form of art. Marie may have filled her detailed poems with imagery so that her audience would easily remember them. Her lais range in length from 118 (''[[Chevrefoil]]'') to 1,184 lines (''[[Eliduc]]''),<ref>Burgess, Glyn S., and Busby, Keith, 1986, p&nbsp;8.</ref> frequently describe courtly love entangled in love triangles involving loss and adventure, and "often take up aspects of the ''merveilleux'' [marvellous], and at times intrusions from the fairy world."<ref name="WhalenLogan">Whalen, Logan E, p&nbsp;62</ref>

One may have a better sense of Marie de France from her very first lay, or rather, the ''Prologue'' she uses to prepare her readers for what is to come. The first line dictates “Whoever has received knowledge/ and eloquence in speech from God/ should not be silent or secretive/ but demonstrate it willingly” <ref>{{Cite book|title=The lais of Marie de France|author=Marie de France|date=1995|orig-year= 1978|publisher=Baker Books|others=Hanning, Robert W., [[Joan M. Ferrante|Ferrante, Joan M.]], 1936-|isbn=080102031X|edition=Pbk. |location=Grand Rapids, MI.|oclc=34140523}}</ref> Marie de France, in so many words, credits her literary skills to God and is therefore allowed to write the lays without her patron’s permission (her patron likely being [[Henry II of England]]). She wants people to read what she has produced, along with her ideas, and as such urges readers to search between the lines, for her writing will be subtle. In this ''Prologue'' alone, Marie de France has deviated from common poets of her time by adding subtle, delicate, and weighted writing to her repertoire. Marie de France took her opportunity as a writer to make her words be heard, and she took them during a time where the production of books and codexes was a long, arduous, and expensive process, where just copying the Bible took fifteen months until the text’s completion.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The library : an illustrated history|author=Murray, Stuart|date=2009|publisher=Skyhorse Pub.|isbn=9781602397064|location=New York, NY|oclc=277203534|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/libraryillustrat0000murr}}</ref>

Unlike the heroes of medieval romances, the characters in Marie’s stories do not seek out adventure. Instead, adventures happen to them. While the settings are true to life, the lais often contain elements of folklore or of the supernatural, such as Bisclavret.<ref name="France 1996">"Marie de France." The Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia for Students. Ed. William Chester Jordan. Vol. 3. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1996. 120-121. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 8 February 2015.</ref> While the setting is described in realistic detail, the subject is a werewolf, sympathetically portrayed.<ref name="France 1996"/> Marie moves back and forth between the real and the supernatural, skillfully expressing delicate shades of emotion. ''[[Lanval]]'' features a [[fairy]] woman who pursues the titular character and eventually brings her new lover to [[Avalon]] with her at the end of the lai. The setting for Marie's lais is the Celtic world, embracing England, Wales, Ireland, Brittany and Normandy.<ref name="BurgessBusby" /><ref name="WhalenLogan" />

Only five manuscripts containing some or all of Marie’s lais exist now, and the only one to include the general prologue and all twelve lais is British Library MS Harley 978. That may be contrasted with the 25 manuscripts with Marie's ''Fables'' and perhaps reflects their relative popularity in the late Middle Ages. In these ''Fables'', she reveals a generally aristocratic point of view with a concern for justice, a sense of outrage against the mistreatment of the poor, and a respect for the social hierarchy.<ref>"Marie de France." Arts and Humanities Through the Eras. Ed. Edward I. Bleiberg, et al. Vol. 3: Medieval Europe 814-1450. Detroit: Gale, 2005. 207-208. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 8 February 2015.</ref> Nevertheless, Marie's lais have received much more critical attention in recent times.