Essay on Marie de France – Courtly Love
PROMPT:
What do Guigemar and Milun from The Lais of Marie de France, ed. Robert Hanning and Joan Ferrente reveal about courtly love. What do these sources tell you about life in the Middle Ages?
These two questions could only be answered after reading Guigemar and Milun from The Lais of Marie de France. Please make sure to answer both questions.
SOURCE: The Lais of Marie de France, ed. Robert Hanning and Joan Ferrente (1978)
Please follow the following format: 8 pages, 12pt Times New Roman font, 1-inch margins, double spaced. Include page numbers. Chicago style.
INTRODUCTION: This is your opportunity to set the scene. Make sure to include exact dates and place names. Give the reader a sense of the context and content of the text that you are examining. Also, make sure define any pertinent ideas and/or terms that you will be using throughout your paper.
THESIS: The question asks you to use a primary text to make a critical and informed conclusion about a particular aspect of society. Your thesis needs to say WHAT X source tells us about Z topic. For more details please refer to the “Writing Workshops” link on the course website.
BODY: Your thesis makes a promise that the body of your paper fulfills by presenting and analyzing evidence. Support your conclusions with quotations (evidence) from the text. Think of yourself as a courtroom attorney. You need to convince the jury of the validity of your claim (thesis). To do so, you must properly contextualize, explain, and analyze the evidence. As a basic rule, a good paragraph follows this structure: topic sentence > context > quote > explanation > analysis. Be careful to identify each quotation by page number in proper footnote citation. For more details please refer to the “Writing Workshops” link on the course website.
CONCLUSION: This is your chance to briefly tell the reader what conclusions one might infer about medieval society based upon an assessment of X topic. Do not simply summarize your body, but make an informed conclusion about life in the Middle Ages.
Marie de France is described by most scholars as the first female French poet. Not much is known about her life, but her poems reveal that she spent most of her life in England.
