In The Lais of Marie de France, Marie plays with the idea of courtly love. As she plays with this idea, she adds into two important spheres, public and private sphere. The public sphere is their duty, what they are expected to do. This can fall into the idea of chivalry and their socioeconomic status. An aristocratic is to contain more chivalry then a peasant on the street. The private sphere is the idea of love and personal life. Their inner feelings. This can fall into many different categories but an important one with Marie is relationships. In all the Lais, she possesses some type of courtly love or adultery. The two Lais that play possess courtly love and the public and private sphere are the Lays of Lanval and Equitan.
In the Lanval Lais, it is the only story to mention King Arthur and his round table. The Lais follows Lanval, a knight at…show more content… They contrast in the idea of courtly love. An important aspect of courtly love is the idea of adultery. Lanval quickly dimisses any sign of adultery. He stays loyal to his fairy queen despite almost losing his life. He stops his queen immediately from trying to seduce him. Lanval loses the one main aspect of courtly love, adultery. It can be argued that Lanval lived because he was true to his beloved and didn’t fall his queen despite being tempted multiple times. On the other hand, Equitan searches for courtly love with the adultery. He is described as a man who finds love as a game and something that he does not need. He also out rightly decides that going after his seneschal wife is okay because he is the king and the seneschal would need help sharing her. He immediately decides to kill the seneschal to have the wife to himself. When he is caught in the act on sexual intercourse, he dies. Equitan died because he was committing adultery and the reader was given no reason to root for the loves. The seneschal was a good man and he was cuckold by his king and his
