Marie Curie Essay

depended on the situation the lovers were in, or the person telling the lover’s tale. Marie de France paints these two opposite views in two of her lays— the “Lay of Yonec”, and the “Lay of the Werewolf.” She also shows readers how the two opposite views on courtly love are sparked due to varying situations. Courtly love is seen in some cases to be just and beautiful while marriage is selfish and cold, but Marie flips these ideals showing also the “bad” side to courtly love and the good of…

I have often wondered about the it in the statement, you can have it all. What does it mean to have it all? In the essay “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All”, Anne-Marie Slaughter, an international lawyer, a foreign policy analyst, former Dean of Princeton, and the Director of Policy Planning of the U.S State Department, elaborates on what it is to her when she describe the reasons she why had to leave the job of her dreams focus more on her family. She discusses the inequalities between men and…

this, died. In Marie de France’s “Yonec”, the knight, son of a married woman and an ideal knight, satisfies this fate with his father’s own sword against the disgraced husband. On the other end of the spectrum, fulfilling physical requirements, but with lacking reputation, the ‘real’ knight Lanval only takes on the image of an ideal knight for a moment, but still holds on to the reputation of a chivalric knight despite his teetering masculine reputation. In “Yonec” and “Lanval,” Marie de France…

For most people, love is known to be a powerful emotion. For some, it can drive people to do honorable and inspiring actions. Others however, can use it for malicious intentions. In the novel A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and the film adaptation of Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, civil unrest in connection with the French government’s increasingly unwarranted rule allowed these traits of love to be illustrated. Sydney Carton, a brilliant but depressed Englishman makes great sacrifices…

In Marie de France's "Bisclavret", the werewolf is more man than animal because of the deep-level of understanding between Bisclavret as a werewolf and the townspeople and the application of humanistic traits and actions rather than using appearance to describe the werewolf. A defining feature of all species is their use of speech to communicate with each other. In Bisclavret, when he is turned into a werewolf for good, there is no mention of him verbally making any noises-speech, growling, or…

There are no more powerful demons in the world than pure infatuation, and no angels that are sweeter than love. In Marie De France’s lai Le Fresne I see elements of maternal and romantic love. In This Lai, I’d define love as strong affection that results in caring for another, even if it leads to no advancement in society. Le Fresne’s mother judged her neighbor who birth twins, claiming that she had to have slept with two men. However, when she gave birth, she too had twins. Le Fresne’s mother…

Marie De France’s portrayal of “Bisclavert” is a commentary on the expected social roles during the mediaeval time period and how deviations from upholding these expectations lead to undesirable consequences. Loyalty is when a person provides continues support to someone and remains faithful to that individual. Her allusions throughout the text towards the importance of maintaining loyalty and chivalry allows one to determine the significance that these values held in mediaeval-society. All…

Love & Nightingales in the Lais In the Laustic by Marie de France we hear a story about an affair, between two neighbors. The fable tells us about the love between a married women and the knight that lives next door. In the story they mention a nightingale, a song bird, which is used as a metaphor to represent their love for one another. The affair is short-lived, and can be interpreted in a few different ways. When reading the fable, you can see it either as a sad tragic ending to a…

Marie De France’s Lanval is one of the two Arthurian stories in her collection of Lais. Lanval is a work of a courtly romance and deals with issues of both sexuality and colonialism. More specifically, the text illustrates how women’s sexualities are treated differently in direct relation to their status within colonialism. I will argue that because Guenevere is English, her defiance is not addressed in this text because of the underlying proto-nationalist themes present in Marie’s imagining of…

Within the lays of Marie de France, a fascination for both man and beast runs rampant throughout. This focus, however, comes not without its own particular purpose, and indeed, the line between the realms of humanity and savagery is deconstructed with the intent of creating an overlap. One simply cannot exist without the other, and no better is this seen than in “Bisclavret,” the tale of man supposedly cursed with the malevolent affliction of lycanthropy. Still, Marie does not include this lay…