There was no reason why a man, and a lover to
boot, should not transform himself nightly into a blue bird. Those
simple stories in verse fulfilled every desire of the heart; imagination
supplied in the north what the south offered in abundant reality. But
Marie de France, the first woman novelist of Europe (about the end of
the twelfth century), deserves to be remembered for another reason; she
was the first poet voicing woman's longing for love and
romance--woman's adventure. The charming _Lai du Chevrefoile_ ("The
Story of the Honeysuckle") relates an episode from the loves of Tristan
and Isolde, the famous lovers, legendary even at that time. Tristan and
Isolde, Lancelot and Guinevere, Fleur and Blanchefleur--these were the
admired and mythical lovers of whom the poets sang and dreamed. All the
world knew their adventures; all the world repeated them again and
again, reverently preserving the identical words and yet unconsciously
remoulding them. At the recital of their loves, hand clasped hand; "on
that day we read no more," confessed Dante's ill-fated lovers.
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