Marie de France: A Critical Companion - (Gallica) by Sharon Kinoshita & Peggy McCracken (Paperback)

About the Book

This new companion to the works of Marie de France offers fresh insights into the standard critical debates.

Book Synopsis

Marie de France is the author of some of the most influential and important works to survive from the middle ages; arguably best-known for her Lais, she also translated Aesop's Fables (the Ysopë), and wrote the Espurgatoire seint Patriz (St Patrick's Purgatory), based on a Latin text. The aim of this Companion is both to provide information on what can be gleaned of her life, and on her poetry, and to rethink standard questions of interpretation, through topics with special relevance to medieval literature and culture. The variety of perspectives used highlights both the unity of Marie's oeuvre and the distinctiveness of the individual texts.

Review Quotes

[This] volume is well written and informative throughout and succeeds in its stated aim [...] of catering for the needs of the student, the scholar, and the general reader.-- "FRENCH STUDIES"

Highly Recommended.-- "CHOICE"

Kinoshita and McCracken challenge readers to rethink their understanding of Marie de France and her works based on cultural, social, and political concerns of the period in which she lived and it is for this reason that their book should be read not only by students, but also by specialists in the field.-- "THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW"