The prologue to Marie’s Lais: back to the littera

Abstract

To add yet more to the literature on Marie's Prologue is to fly in the face of her own warning against writing on much-covered topics: 'ne me fust guaires de pris: Itant s'en sunt altre entremis' (Prologue 31-2).2 Neverthe-less, I believe something still needs to be said on the literal level of the words Marie uses, and the way we transcribe and translate them. A re-examination of the littera in a key section of the Prologue gives us, I shall argue, a fuller understanding of Marie's poetics, and a clearer insight into her concept of textual transmission.