Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Note on Editions
- 1 Introduction: the World of Marie de France
- 2 Communication, Transmission, and Interpretation: Literary History
- 3 Courtly Love and Feudal Society: Historical Context
- 4 Movement and Mobility: Plot
- 5 Bodies and Embodiment: Characters
- 6 Repetition and the Art of Variation: Narrative Techniques
- 7 Posterity: The Afterlives of Marie's Works
- Further Reading
- Index
- Already Published
7 - Posterity: The Afterlives of Marie's Works
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Note on Editions
- 1 Introduction: the World of Marie de France
- 2 Communication, Transmission, and Interpretation: Literary History
- 3 Courtly Love and Feudal Society: Historical Context
- 4 Movement and Mobility: Plot
- 5 Bodies and Embodiment: Characters
- 6 Repetition and the Art of Variation: Narrative Techniques
- 7 Posterity: The Afterlives of Marie's Works
- Further Reading
- Index
- Already Published
Summary
One of the only things Marie de France tells us about herself is that she does not want to be forgotten, and when she gives readers her name, it is so that they will remember it:
Hear, lords, the stories of Marie, who is not forgotten in her own time.
Oëz, seignur, que dit Marie,
ki en sun tens pas ne s'oblie.
(Guigemar, ll. 3–4)At the end of this composition that I have composed and put into French, I will name myself for remembrance: my name is Marie and I am from France.
Al finement de cest escrit
que en romanz ai treité e dit,
me numerai pur remembrance:
Marie ai nun, si sui de France.
(Ysopë, epilogue, ll. 1–4)This desire to be remembered as an author is also found in the Vie seinte Audree and it is one of the primary reasons for the attribution of the poem to Marie de France by some critics. In the last lines of the Audree, in an oddly disjunctive ending, the author/translator writes:
I have finished translating into French the book of the Life of Saint Audrey just as I found it in Latin, and recording the miracles I have heard. I do not wish for any of it to be forgotten. For this reason I pray to the glorious and precious Saint Audrey that she pity me and hear me and that in her mercy she aid my soul and those for whom I pray to her. The one who forgets herself is foolish. Here I write my name “Marie” so that I will be remembered.
Issi ay ceo livre finé
En romanz dit et translaté
De la vie seintë Audree
Si com en latin l’ay trové,
Et les miracles ay öy,
Ne voil nul mettrë en obli.
Pur ce depri la glorïuse
Seinte Audree la precïeuse
Par sa pité k’a moy entende
Et ce servise a m’ame rende,
Et ceus pur ki ge la depri
K’el lur aït par sa merci.
Mut par est fol ki se oblie.
Ici escris mon non Marie
Pur ce ke soie remembree.
(La vie seinte Audree, ll. 4611–25)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Marie de FranceA Critical Companion, pp. 201 - 218Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2012