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| A painting of a medieval nightingale. Retrieved from: http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast546.htm |
Marie de France's poetry has easily become a favorite. She is a master of weaving stories of which the reader will crave more.
In her lai, Laüstic or The Nightingale, there are two lovers who cannot be together: a young knight who is brave, honorable, and generous and a woman who is courteous, wise, and gracious. Similar to other tales of forbidden love, the woman is married to another man.
Marie de France made it a point to describe the woman as having a deep sense of self-respect, which is probably why the woman felt the freedom or drive to follow her heart and seek out the young knight.
In the story, she would meet with her lover late at night and when she would return her husband would ask where she has been. Her answer was simply, she was listening to the nightingale.
The nightingale became a symbol and the embodiment of the lovers' relationship.
During the middle ages nightingales were known for singing day and night. They would sing to pass the time during the night, but at the break of dawn they would sing so enthusiastically that he or she would nearly die. Nightingales were considered to be poets or something that inspires human poets.
In the poem, the entrapment and the death of the nightingale symbolizes the ending of the lovers' relationship. The lovers treat the nightingale's body delicately, sacredly, and as something that will always be treasured.
The way in which the nightingale is treated convinces me that the lovers' relationship was not a passing fancy. Rather, it was a love the two treasured and believed to be sacred; a love that will never cease but will continue on even thought the two must remain apart.
The poem leaves me with the sweetest kind of sadness. It is so rare to find those two things working together in order to affect the reader in such a way as this.
What are your reactions? Did you have an emotional response as well? If so please share!
Below is a link to a nightingale singing, in case you have never heard one before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INzqozVbYL8
Kinzi,
ReplyDeleteI loved this reading as well, partially because I love a good romance! The poem also left me with a very bitter sweet feeling because I felt the love that these two characters had for one another through the description of the nightingale. I was very sad and mad when her husband killed it and threw it at her, but you make a really good point that in Maria De France's writing she makes the nightingale a symbol of love and affection and she did a very good job at giving me all the feels!
Yeah not a fan of the husband, I can see why he would react that way but he was so cruel! I love romances, well not the romances that have half naked people on the covers. I love novels that have romantic storylines, I should say (lol). I think if we look a little deeper we can find many other instances when Marie de France uses symbolism.
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