Tour de France

Visiting Paris, France have always been a great desire for me. There is not one specific reason to explain this desire, but rather a collection of things that draw my specific attention to Paris. Perhaps my first visit to Republic of Congo and the French language being their lingua franca got me intrigued. I love to experience the original French cuisine, the art, the fashion, the architecture, and everything Paris has to offer and their smooth language. Also I have always brought up this ideal…

Milun: A Tale of Love and Loss Milun, transcribed and composed by Marie de France, is a love story that intertwines readers into the tragic sequence of events, drama, and imaginable love within the poem. The author, Marie de France, wrote The Lais- twelve short stories written around 1170. Marie de France 's lais, told in octosyllabic, or eight syllable verse, are prominent for their celebration of love, uniqueness of character, and vividness of description – hallmarks of the emerging…

The Unexpected Dimensions of “Lanval” The time period spanning from the fall of Rome in the fifth century all the way to the end of the fifteenth century is what most refer to as the Middle Ages. This period in time lasted nearly a thousand years and with it many great works of literature came about. Some which are still studied in the modern day. These works were passed down orally from one generation to the next as many were illiterate, books at the time were mainly written in Latin, and only…

there are elements of each of these aspects in Marie de France’s works, many of her lais have a strong focus on the desires of her female characters and differ slightly from the works of romance written by her contemporaries. The male writers of her time were largely interested in chivalry and courtly responsibilities of knights, however, Marie went in a different direction and focused more her female characters. The fact that Marie de France is a female writer in a patriarchal society and her…

Romantic love is a significant theme in Marie de France’s Lay of Lanval and The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu. Both novels center on the romance of courtly love, however, Lanval concentrates on the love for one lady, while The Tale of Genji is a search for the perfect lady. Lanval’s acts of love are honor and secrecy, until the queen angers him into spilling the secret of his true love. Since the beginning of time, men and women have committed many different acts in the name of love.…

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…

If I were fortunate enough to receive the scholarship that the “From a Different Perspective” organization, it would be an opportunity of a lifetime if I were able to embark France. If I were given this special opportunity, I would choose to embark Provence – Alpes – Côte d’Azur, a region in Southeastern France and formerly known as Provence. Provence is known for their beautiful field of lavender flower. I chose Provence for the geographical benefits of the regions such as being close to the…

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…