The anonymous Marie de France /

Marie, France's first woman writer, was startlingly sophisticated and self-conscious, pivotal in her time. Buried for centuries under layers of broad-brush put-downs (most by male scholars), her work finds here redemption and vindication. Bloch (Yale Univ.) dubs her both the Joyce of the 12th-century and (nearly) its Augustine. Block subjects Marie's complete oeuvre to a reconceptualizing and detailed scrutiny heretofore unknown in Old French critical circles. Terms like language, ethos, and memory function as analytical leitmotifs throughout six chapters of intricate examination devoted about equally to a collection of short tales (or lais)--The Lais of Marie de France (Eng. tr., CH, Jul'79)--and to The Fables--The Fables of Marie de France, Eng. tr. by Mary Lou Martin (CH, Jan'85); The Fables, Eng. tr. by Harriet Spiegel (CH, Oct'87). Another three chapters focus on Marie's neglected Saint Patrick's Purgatory. Vernacular hermeneutics, philological and etymological inquiry, the illegality of adulterous and secret love--such are some of the topics and techniques at work. Though short on terseness and on references, this groundbreaking study will be welcomed by medieval scholars, graduate students, and feminists eager to understand the complex arguments unwrapped, particularly regarding Marie's deep and obsessive "theology of language." ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. R. Cormier Longwood University