The Life of Racine Book

Bloch examines all of Marie de France's works -- the lais, the fables, and St. Patrick's Purgatory -- from all sorts of scholarly points of view -- historical, new historical, desconstructionist, psychological, literary, anthropological, and more. His basic point about Marie is that she is shown through her works to be cosmopolitan; alive to the behaviors of Henry II of England's court; aware of the changing attitudes in law, literature, the aristocratic family, and religion/philosophy; searching for the value of words and language both spoken and unspoken; and more. According to Bloch, Marie de France has been seen by past scholars to be simple, naive, and young. His book is a testament to proving the opposite: Marie was mature, sensitive, deliberate in use of language, situation, and character, and willing to create new approaches to old ideas.

Bloch goes overboard in his proofs with carefully explained examples that run the gamut of deeply ancient to modern (he considers Marie to be Joycean). I really enjoyed this book.