Haunting, erotic, and melancholic, these tales in verse show how brilliant and destructive love can be. They are set in a long-gone, enchanted Celtic world in which people transform into animals, unmanned boats bring lovers to each other, and fairies sweep knights to Avalon.

Above all, the myth of Marie endures because of her lais. It is unusual to find signed vernacular poetry from this period. (The prologue to one lai names “Marie” in the third person, and the epilogue to the fables is in Marie’s voice, adding that she is from France.) Scholars have endeavored, without success, to identify her with a crew of contemporary abbesses and noblewomen.ĭespite her shadowy history, Marie remains a singular, appealing figure.

We do not know if a single person wrote all the works ascribed to “Marie,” or if this was a pen name adopted by multiple authors. She wrote a collection of animal fables, translated a religious treatise on Purgatory and a life of Saint Audrey from the Latin, and composed a series of twelve short tales in verse, called lais, about passionate love. In the story most often told about her today, Marie was a learned French émigré connected to the court of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine in late-twelfth-century England. The best-known woman poet of the Middle Ages is a chimera, pieced together centuries after she lived from stray clues in the poems that are attributed to her. It is hard to pin down Marie de France, though many have tried.

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