The Old French Lays of ‘Ignaure’, ‘Oiselet’ and ‘Amours’ (review)

As noted by the authors in the Preface, the lays in this book form a sequel to their earlier work, Arthurian Literature IV: Eleven Old French Narrative Lays (D. S. Brewer, 2007). They are presented here with parallel English translation. In addition to these three lays and the eleven in the aforementioned volume, Glyn S. Burgess and Leslie C. Brook have also published editions and English translations of five other non-Marie de France narrative lays, in the Liverpool Online Series: Doon and Tyolet (2005; review in French Studies, 61 (2007), 354–55) and Trot, Lecheor, Nabaret (1999); their edition and translation of Aristote is scheduled to appear in the series in 2011. The authors continue here the tradition they developed in their previous work on the lays by presenting clear analysis, close editing, and fluid translation of the texts. They have indeed secured their position as the leading authorities on these brief narrative texts composed in octosyllabic rhymed couplets during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The justification for a new edition of these lays is quite clear: Ignaure has not been edited since 1938 (Rita Lejeune) and no new edition of Amours has appeared since 1878 (Gaston Paris); Lenora Wolfgang’s edition of Oiselet twenty years ago does not contain the presentation of additional material that the authors arrange in this volume, including a new edition of the alternative version found in MS Paris, BnF, fr. 25545. But this book not only offers updated editions, it also engages current trends of critical discourse on the genre: ‘The juxtaposition of the three lays in the present volume challenges our concept of what constituted a lay in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, especially if we adopt the perhaps narrow view that the lays of Marie de France represent and define the principle features of this genre’ (p. 2). The three lays are taken from the following manuscripts: Paris, BnF, fr. 1553 (Ignaure), BnF, nouv. acq. 1104 (Oiselet and Amours), and BnF, fr. 25545 (the parallel section of Oiselet and its alternative version). They are presented in the order in which they appear in the title of the book. Each of the three sections contains a lengthy and detailed Introduction to the lay it examines — Elizabeth W. Poe wrote a substantial portion of the Introduction to Amours — followed by the text and translation, then notes to the text and translation. The five extant manuscripts of Oiselet present part of the text in two different orders. Accordingly, the authors organize both orders within a single edition of the poem and offer three Appendices to this section: I, a table of correspondence of lines in the five manuscripts; II, the alternative version of Oiselet; and III, a version of John Lydgate’s stanzaic The Churl and the Bird, which bears similarities to Oiselet. There is an extensive twenty-two-page bibliography at the end. Future research on the narrative lays will be greatly indebted to the work of Burgess and Brook, including the solid scholarship presented in this volume.