Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Academic encounters 2025: Intersecting perspectives on languages, literatures, and cultures, Selçuk Şentürk, Editör, Çizgi Kitabevi Yayınları, İstanbul, ss.109-127, 2025
Ships were enigmatic for all Medieval
people due to technological and cultural reasons. For
instance, Medieval shipbuilders “had no theory and so could
not anticipate with any precision what the effects of even a
small change in design on the handling qualities of the ship
would be” (Unger, 1981, p. 252). Hence, to understand the
meaning of the sea and ships for the Medieval, “Historians
perhaps need to think both more imaginatively and more
critically about the maritime world which lies behind the
accounts, writs, and inventories which make up the bulk of
their sources” (Rose, 2011, p. 76). To contribute to this task,
literary texts can serve as valuable resources as among many,
twelfth-century poet and translator Marie de France (1160-
1215) provides an account from which we can learn how a
Medieval woman perceived the sea and the ships not only
as vehicles for transportation but with additional symbolic
repercussions. Studies have shed light on various aspects of
the sea and the ship in the medieval period. In this paper,
first, a general reading of the sea image as articulated in
Marie de France’s lays is presented by presenting general
characteristics of the text with a focus on the significance of
the image of the sea and the ship. This reading is followed by
a close reading of the text, during which symbols and figures
of speech constructed by the poetess are discussed to shed
light on the cultural aspects surrounding such images that are
important in medieval people’s lives.