Publisher's Synopsis
Marie is, Bloch asserts, one of the most self-conscious, sophisticated, and disturbing figures of her time-a writer whose works reveal an acute awareness not only of her role in the preservation of cultural memory, but also of the transformative psychological, social, and political effects of her writing within an oral tradition. The Anonymous Marie de France recovers the central achievements of one of the most pivotal figures in French literature. It is a study that will be of enormous value to medievalists, literary scholars, historians of France, and anyone interested in the advent of female authorship.