The Lays of Marie de France

by David R. Slavitt (Editor)

The twelve lays of Marie de France, the earliest known French woman poet, are here presented in sprightly English verse by poet and translator David R. Slavitt. Traditional Breton folktales were the raw material for Marie de Frances series of lively but profound considerations of love, life, death, fidelity and betrayal, and luck and fate. They offer acute observations about the choices that women make, startling in the late twelfth century and challenging even today. Combining a womans wisdom with an impressive technical bravura, the lays are a minor treasure of European culture.

161 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

David Rytman Slavitt was an American writer, poet, and translator, the author of more than 100 books.
Slavitt has written a number of novels and numerous translations from Greek, Latin, and other languages. Slavitt wrote a number of popular novels under the pseudonym Henry Sutton, starting in the late 1960s. The Exhibitionist (1967) was a bestseller and sold over four million copies. He has also published popular novels under the names of David Benjamin, Lynn Meyer, and Henry Lazarus. His first work, a book of poems titled Suits for the Dead, was published in 1961. He worked as a writer and film critic for Newsweek from 1958 to 1965.
According to Henry S. Taylor, winner of the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, "David Slavitt is among the most accomplished living practitioners" of writing, "in both prose and verse; his poems give us a pleasurable, beautiful way of meditating on a bad time. We can't ask much more of literature, and usually we get far less." Novelist and poet James Dickey wrote, "Slavitt has such an easy, tolerant, believable relationship with the ancient world and its authors that making the change-over from that world to ours is less a leap than an enjoyable stroll. The reader feels a continual sense of gratitude."

Reviews

[alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

very funny. huge props to translator for rhyming the english

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great fun, 12 entertaining short stories covering a variety of lengths. Really liked that this translation kept the rhyme! The stories were bonkers at times (especially Laüstic, Equitan and Le Fresne wow) and the way the lais are written makes me feel like Marie herself is telling me the craziest medieval gossip! My favourites I think were Milun, Lanval and Bisclavret but I enjoyed them all.

I also enjoyed seeing mentions of places I recognised and/or had been to, like St Malo and Dol, the Exeter and Totnes mention took me off guard so much though lol.

[Alvina]

Read primarily for the translation of 'Lanval' and a portion of the introduction. All in all, not my favorite translation of the poem, but still an engaging read. Not sure if I entirely agree that it would "disservice to her and to the poems to try to extract a philosophical or political “position” from [the] pieces"...kind of set me on edge, hah!

[Bexan · Rating 5 out of 5]

BISCLAVRET MY BELOVED! Far and away my favorite lay that is in this work. It is super lovely! I love all my medieval French gay werewolves, and I refuse to accept alternative explanations that they were just "friends" regardless of literary and historic factors that go into academic interpretations. I am not a scholar, so I am not beholden to peer review. <3

[Rebekah Byson · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's fun to discover new "fairy tale" like stories. So much symbolism to unpack. Rings and werewolves and swan nessengers, and so much adultery and shadow twins, and dead husbands. Disney never thought about being this racy.

[Art · Rating 4 out of 5]

I taught some of these to students for the first time. I decided I wanted to read all of them. They gave me some new insights into the time. I appreciate them.

[Sari]

really not the best translation- no attempt to do a literal one, a lot of direct speech is made indirect, and the translation contains a lot of french terms still??

[Manya]

I'm marking this as finished and read even though I did not really read it because I read/skimmed most of it and have read so many articles on Marie de France that do not fit into my books read count that I honestly think it makes up for it.

I liked this book but it isn't a very close translation. By itself, that is fine but I am reading these lays for an academic paper so I wanted a closer translation. I wish the introduction had been clearer about the looseness of the translation since I read most of the book before realizing that but over all, it is an interesting perspective on Marie de France.