ABSTRACT
Marie was the first of the great and well-educated French women writers, a nobly born woman who lived and wrote in England during the latter part of the twelfth century, when Anglo-Norman was still the language in dominant use. She had connections with the Anglo-Norman court, where her work was evidently commissioned. Marie writes of love from a secular, aristocratic, and chiefly female viewpoint, showing herself influenced by the amatory cult abstracted from the lyrics of Provence and northern France. She enjoyed wide fame as a writer, not only in her immediate circle but abroad, where her lais were translated into Latin, Italian, German, Old Norse, and English. Marie shows a strong affection for the written word, which she often weaves in as a motif in the narrative. An examination of the full range of Marie’s works will reveal her linking motifs and themes in works that seem on the surface to be dissimilar.
