Marie, the Narrator

While reading "The Lais of Marie de France," I couldn't help feeling that the narrator reminded me of the Wife of Bath. Marie and the Wife of Bath seem to share one thing in common, they both believe that they know everything there is to know about love without providing their "listeners" with any real evidence to support their own presumed knowledge.

The Wife of Bath in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," begins by attributing all of her knowlegde regarding the relationships between men and women to "experience" and her five unsuccessful marriages. She also scews Bible stories to fit into the context of her argument. Marie attributes her knowledge to God, stating in the "Prologue," "Anyone who has received from God the gift of knowledge and true eloquence has a duty not to remain silent: rather should one be happy to reveal such talents." Like the Wife of Bath, Marie gives no substantial evidence as to how she aquired her "gift." All of her knowledge was bestowed upon her by God, therefore, it must be "true." However, throughout the text, Marie must remind us that she does not lie. In the unbelievable lay "Bisclavert," she ends the tale by adding "many of the women in the family, I tell you truly, were born without noses and lived noseless." Just as the WIfe of Bath uses and abuses the Bible for her own selfish gain, Marie abuses her self proclaimed knowledge from God.

As a result, Marie proves to be an unreliable narrator of these lais. The following examples taken from the lais provided the reader with the believe that like the Wife of Bath, Marie cannot be trusted in her retelling of these lais, nor in her "wise" words that she imparts to her listeners. In "Yonec," Marie explains that Yonec's mother's sorrow was so great, her looks began to fade, "as happens to any woman who fails to take care of herself." Again in the tale of "Lanval," Marie states "Lords, do not be surprised: a stranger bereft of advice can be very downcast in another land when he does not know where to seek help." These statements from Marie that appear throughout the readings are given with little to no evidence to support them. her knowledge cannot be trusted, therefore her retelling of the events cannot be either.