"Whosoever counts these Lays as fable, may be assured that I am not of his mind"
About this Quote
A poet opening with a dare: call these lays “fable” if you want, but don’t expect her to join you. Marie de France isn’t merely defending the truth of her stories; she’s staking a claim about how truth works in literature. In a medieval culture that sorted narratives into the respectable (history, moral exempla) and the suspect (romance, marvel), she refuses the demotion. The line draws a bright border between the credulous scoffer and the reader willing to treat story as a serious vehicle for knowledge.
The wording is slyly legalistic. “Whosoever” sounds like a proclamation, as if she’s issuing terms of engagement for her audience. “May be assured” flips the burden of proof: the skeptic doesn’t get to sit above the text in judgment; the skeptic simply reveals himself as the wrong kind of reader. Then the small, icy phrase “not of his mind” lands with social force. It’s less insult than exclusion, a way of curating a community around her work.
Subtextually, Marie is also protecting the ambiguous status of the lai itself: courtly tale, Breton legend, moral lesson, entertainment. She won’t pin it down to literal fact, but she won’t let it be dismissed as “mere” fiction either. Belief here is a posture, an ethical and imaginative readiness. The marvels in her lays ask to be read not as reportage but as compressed arguments about desire, loyalty, betrayal, and power - truths that survive even when the plot wears a cloak of enchantment.
The wording is slyly legalistic. “Whosoever” sounds like a proclamation, as if she’s issuing terms of engagement for her audience. “May be assured” flips the burden of proof: the skeptic doesn’t get to sit above the text in judgment; the skeptic simply reveals himself as the wrong kind of reader. Then the small, icy phrase “not of his mind” lands with social force. It’s less insult than exclusion, a way of curating a community around her work.
Subtextually, Marie is also protecting the ambiguous status of the lai itself: courtly tale, Breton legend, moral lesson, entertainment. She won’t pin it down to literal fact, but she won’t let it be dismissed as “mere” fiction either. Belief here is a posture, an ethical and imaginative readiness. The marvels in her lays ask to be read not as reportage but as compressed arguments about desire, loyalty, betrayal, and power - truths that survive even when the plot wears a cloak of enchantment.
Quote Details
| Topic | Poetry |
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