Medieval Beginnings: The Lais of Marie de France

If a Middle Ages full of castles, jousts, hawking, illicit love affairs and playful singing in the meadows is what you’re looking for, then look no further than the Lais of Marie de France. These 12th century love stories, written in Anglo-Norman by a writer who was unusually keen to make her name known, describe noble stories of passion, devotion, betrayal, self-sacrifice and magical transformations played out in enchanted woodlands and richly-draped chambers. Irina and Mary discuss Marie’s various portrayals of love, her luscious powers of description, and the frequent deployment of animals in her stories to expose and resolve human problems. This is an extract from the episode. To listen in full, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe: Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecryt In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsyt Irina Dumitrescu is Professor of English Medieval Studies at the University of Bonn. Mary Wellesley is a historian and author of 'Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and their Makers'. ABOUT CLOSE READINGS Close Readings is a multi-series podcast subscription from the London Review of Books which looks at different periods and themes in literature through selections of key texts, covering poetry, fiction, history and philosophy from Ancient Greece to the present day. Find more episodes here:    • Close Readings   Subscribe: https://lrb.me/closereadingsyt ABOUT THE LRB The LRB is Europe’s leading magazine of books and ideas. Published twice a month, it provides a space for some of the world’s best writers to explore a wide variety of subjects in exhilarating detail – from culture and politics to science and technology via history and philosophy. In the age of the long read, the LRB remains the pre-eminent exponent of the intellectual essay, admired around the world for its fearlessness, its range and its elegance. As well as essays and book reviews each issue also contains poems, an exhibition review, ‘short cuts’, letters and a diary, and is available in print, online, and offline via our app. Subscribers enjoy unlimited access to almost 15,000 articles in our digital archive. Our website features a regular blog and a channel of audio and video content, including podcasts, author interviews and highlights from the events programme at the London Review Bookshop.