Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Medieval Europe in Motion VI: The Sea, Lisbon, Portekiz, 28 - 30 Kasım 2022, cilt.1, sa.1, ss.53
Twelfth-century poet and translator Marie de France (1160-1215) is known for her translation of 103 Aesopic fables titled Ysopets and her Lays, a collection of verse narratives that deal with issues of romantic relationships and magical interferences. Marie de France’s treatment of love and romance encompasses the beauties and hurdles of love, romantic relationships, and marriage. However, such relationships are often framed by wickedness and goodness that are rewarded or punished, depending on the nature of her characters, the quality of the action, and the givens of the setting. In one lay titled “A Story Beyond the Sea,” Marie de France perceives the sea as a place of wickedness and punishment and a place of blessing and peripeteia. Hence, Marie de France’s treatment of the sea is interrogated as an image with its symbolic and historical repercussions. First, general reading of the sea image as articulated in her lays is presented. This reading is followed by a close reading of the text, during which symbols and figures of speech constructed by the poetess are discussed. While the reading of the text as cultural material points to various historical and religious realities of the Medieval World, the paper concludes that although the sea is first and primarily used as a location of endless punishment, it symbolically serves as a vehicle on its own that enables Marie de France’s nameless female character to sail towards distant lands where she starts a new life as fate decides her course for her.