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:
“I do not know whether there be, as a rule, more vocal expression of the sentiment of love between a man and a woman, than there is between two thrushes. They whistle and call to each other, guided by instinct rather than by reason.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“Silence accompanies the most significant expressions of happiness and unhappiness: those in love understand one another best when silent, while the most heated and impassioned speech at a graveside touches only outsiders, but seems cold and inconsequential to the widow and children of the deceased.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“Though God hath raised me high, yet this I count the glory of my crown: that I have reigned with your loves.... And though you have had, and may have, many mightier and wiser princes sitting in this seat; yet you never had, nor shall have any that will love you better.”
—Elizabeth I (1533–1603)