Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-03, Section: A, page: 0919.

Adviser: Daniel Poirion.

This dissertation examines the Esope, written at the end of the twelfth century by Marie de France. This recueil is the first literary work written by a French female poet and it is the first collection of fables in any vernacular of Western Europe. While Marie's fables are inspired by the Latin tradition (didactic, authoritative and univocal), my contention is that by subverting her model, Marie subverts in fact certain aspects of the literary and philosophical authorities as they were perceived in the twelfth century. Her subversion is emphasized both by her innovative use of the vernacular and by the fact that she was a woman, and as such was not expected to address, and even less to contest, the literary and philosophical suppositions of her time.

I investigate the ambiguous role of discourse in the Esope through an examination of the poetical and philosophical intentions in the collection, and I show that, in opposition to earlier and contemporary fabulists, Marie is a poet, not a preacher. Language itself becomes the theme of the Esope and each fable a reflection on the status of language and its duplicity. That Marie's project was essentially polemical can be seen in her challenge of Isidore of Seville's traditional opposition between fable and history and his valoriation of the latter at the expense of the former. Until Marie de France, this distinction remained largely unquestioned. However, Marie argues that both are narrative and linguistic constructions and therefore that neither can take precedence over the other. The border between reality and illusion is thus blurred and so is any attempt to distinguish between truth and lies.

By highlighting the issues of language, authority and interpretation, not only did Marie re-write and thus re-create the genre of the fable, but she also inaugurated a new poetics, which was to become an essential component of the literature and literary discussions of the later Middle Ages.