Reference no: EM131842595

Assignment

Marie de France: Lais
Norton Anthology, 1405-1424
Medieval Lyrics
Norton Anthology, 1539-41; 1545-1583.
Analytical questions: Lais

1. It has been said that courtly love writers usually depict love as an emotional and/or physical affliction, often motivating lovers to withstand danger and pain, that love is not depicted in terms of mutual affection, sympathy, or shared interests. To what extent do "Lanval" and "Laiistic" depict love in the manner of courtly love writers?

2. What new values are embodied in the life of Lanval and his lover? In particular, consider how the portrayal of Lanval and his secret lover differs from earlier medieval and Christian attitudes toward wealth and worldly riches.

3. Is the portrayal of King Arthur and his court in "Lanval" what you expected? How does this narrative differ from a heroic chronicle?

4. How do these brief narratives both reflect and challenge prevailing views of gender and sexuality? Cite and explain details that reinforce the courtly, chivalric code of love and others that complicate or undercut it. How does the fact that the author is a woman relate to this topic?

Factual reading questions: Lais

Introduction

1. Marie de France lived during the second half of what century? 1405

2. Despite her name, Marie was an English writer, composing in what dialect? 1405

3. T/F: Marie worked on her writing during moments of respite from her duties as a wife and mother. 1405

4. Marie offered her collection of Lais as a gift to this person, who was king of England and duke of Normandy. 1405

5. The sources for Marie's stories are Breton songs, from Brittany, a region that with others such as Cornwall and Wales is grouped under what broad cultural and linguistic category, distinct from English and French? 1405-1406

6. T/F: Marie was the first to bring oral Breton tales of Arthurian romance to the mainstream of European literature. 1406

"Lanval"

7. For what purpose should one "study and understand / and begin a weighty work"? 1407

8. Arthur was staying at Cordoel because who was "destroying the land"? 1408

9. In tales of King Arthur, the name Logres refers to what? 1408

10. The king was giving out "many rich gifts," at what feast day? 1408

11. Who was Lanval's father? 1408

12. T/F: Lanval holds his horse by the reins as he walks along the bank of the "running stream." 1409

13. What color are the "tunics" of the "two girls"? 1409

14. Who "could not have paid for one of the flaps" on the beautiful lady's tent? 1409

15. The beautiful lady has thrown over herself a "precious cloak" of what material? 1410

16. When he promises to "obey [her] command," Lanval adds, "for you, I shall" what? 1410

17. When the beautiful lady hears Lanval's words, she "grant[s] him her love and her" what? 1410

18. The beautiful lady admonishes Lanval that if he were to do what, he "would lose [her] for good"? 1411

19. When Lanval returns to his lodging, he finds that his accommodations" are what? 1412

20. T/F: When Lanval returns from his encounter with the beautiful lady, he is miserly and tightfisted with his newfound wealth. 1412

21. In that same year... / after the feast of whom is the second half of "Lanval" set? 1412

22. As the knights amuse themselves in the orchard, the queen brings how many of her maidens to join them? 1413

23. T/F: Lanval accepts the queen's proposition. 1413

24. The queen tells Lanval, "people have often told me / that you have no interest in" what? 1413

25. T/F: When the king returns, the queen lies to him about her encounter with Lanval. 1414

26. The king swears that "if Lanval could not defend himself in court," the king would have him what? 1414

27. T/F: When Lanval goes to court, he is so sad that he doesn't care whether they kill him. 1415

28. Which knight "pledge[s] himself for" Lanval, so the king will release Lanval to him? 1416

29. The barons decide that in order for Lanval to "be acquitted," who must "come forward"? 1417

3o. When the barons are ready to give their verdict, "two girls" approach on palfreys, "dressed in" what "over their bare skin"? 1417

31. As the barons prepare to resume the trial, "two girls... / dressed in Phrygian silks" approach on what animals? 1418

32. When the beautiful lady arrives on a white palfrey, the horse's trappings are said to be so rich that no "count or king... / could have afforded them" without doing what? 1419

33. T/F: The beautiful lady has shining, straight, black hair, which is compared to a raven. 1419

34. What does the beautiful lady carry on her wrist? 1419

35. T/F: After the beautiful lady speaks on Lanval's behalf, the king renders his own judgment in Lanval's favor. 1420

36. T/F: Lanval mounts the palfrey and then helps the beautiful lady up behind him. 1421

37. Lanval and the beautiful lady went where, "so the Bretons tell us"? 1421

"Laustic (The Nightingale)"

38. What is the French word for what the Bretons call laiistic? 1421

39. The bachelor neighbor of the married couple is "well known among his peers" for what? 1421

40. There is no "barrier or boundary" between the bachelor and the neighbor's wife "except" what? 1422

41. Why can't the bachelor and the neighbor's wife "come together / completely for their pleasure"? 1422

42. When the husband questions his wife about why she gets out of bed each night, what does she tell him? 1422-23

43. After the husband traps the nightingale and the wife "ask[s] her lord for the bird," what does he do? 1423

44. How does the wife's shift become stained? 1423

45. The wife wraps the nightingale in what fabric, "embroidered in gold and writing"? 1424

46. What does the bachelor neighbor have fashioned of "pure gold and good stones"? 1424

47. T/F: The bachelor neighbor carries the bird with him always. 1424

Analytical questions: medieval lyrics

1. Explicate any one of these poems in detail, indicating how its theme is appropriate for its own time and perhaps for our own time.

2. Note the dates and the changes in subject, technique, and point of view. What general observations can you make about these poems from disparate times and places?

Factual reading questions: medieval lyrics

1. What sort of "embrace" now "holds the royal architects" of the city referred to in "The Ruin"? 1545

2. In "The Ruin," the people "gazed upon a treasure." What did the "treasure" consist of? 1546

3. In "From Al-Zahra," what is the "It" in the lines, "It was an unfenced / Field and we ran there, free / Like horses"? 1548

4. In "Lord," the speaker prays, "Free me from my prison of what? 1553

5. In "A Lover's Prize," in whose place does she want her lover? 1563

6. In "The Wound of Love," what did the loved one do "with such vehemence"? 1566

7. What does Dante wish that Guido, Lapo, and he could talk about "without an end"? 1583.