Love
In most of Marie de France’s Lais, love is associated with suffering and over half of them involve an adulterous relationship. In Bisclavret and Equitan, the adulterous lovers are severely condemned but there is evidence that Marie approved of extramarital affairs under certain circumstances: "When the deceived partner has been cruel and merits deception and when the lovers are loyal to one another.” In Marie's Lais, "love always involves suffering and frequently ends in grief, even when the love itself is approved.”
Marie's lovers are usually isolated and relatively unconcerned with anything outside the immediate cause of their distress, whether it be a jealous husband or an envious society. However, "the means of overcoming this suffering is beautifully and subtly illustrated.” "Marie concentrates on the individuality of her characters and is not very concerned with their integration into society. If society does not appreciate the lovers, then the lovers die or abandon society, and society is the poorer for it.”
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Famous quotes containing the word love:
“How soon country people forget. When they fall in love with a city it is forever, and it is like forever. As though there never was a time when they didn’t love it. The minute they arrive at the train station or get off the ferry and glimpse the wide streets and the wasteful lamps lighting them, they know they are born for it. There, in a city, they are not so much new as themselves: their stronger, riskier selves.”
—Toni Morrison (b. 1931)
“They live everywhere
on forest grass and water
that they’ve taken for themselves
and even then,
the love of a buck and his doe
ends only in death.”
—Hla Stavhana (c. 50 A.D.)
“I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. As a lily among brambles, so is my love among maidens. As an apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Song of Solomon 2:1-3.