1. Literary Texts
The two lays of Marie de France read in class
Lay of the Nightingale
Lay of the Honeysuckle
2. Purpose of the Literary Essay
Your literary essay is an interpretative analysis and reasoned reflection on the Literary
texts we have read in class.
You can base your literary essay on your journal entries, class notes and class discussions
to write it.
It should contain a minimum of 700 words or approximately three pages.
3. Topics for your Literary Essay #1
Choose one topic among the many proposed below. Discuss it and make sure to give
examples from the text(s) you discuss in the literary essay you choose to analyze.
1. Explain how, Marie de France’s Lay of the Nightingale and her Lay of the Honeysuckle
are part of the medieval courtly tradition.
2. Explain how Marie de France’s Lay of the Nightingale and/or her Lay of the Honeysuckle,
propose an idealized picture of love.
3. Both of Marie de France’s lays, the Nightingale and the Honeysuckle, present three main
figures entangled in a love triangle. Discuss the love triangle in one or both of Marie’s
lays, and show how each of the three characters of that triangle has unique, perhaps
even stereotyped, personality.
4. Final Remarks
As stated above, your literary essay is a reflective analysis of some texts we have
studied in class. It is not necessarily a research paper. However, you will need to
document and add a bibliography to your literary essay if you chose to include
comments and/or quotations from other sources than those from the author of the
texts you discuss. In such case, you will have to use either the APA or MLA format.
