Lai and Breton lay – Literary Terms

Lai and Breton lay – Literary Terms, What is Lai and Breton lay, LAIS of Marie de France 

Lai and Breton lay – Literary Terms

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Breton lay:

A NARRATIVE adventure poem written in fourteenth century England that imitated the LAIS of Marie de France (Breton means "from Brittany," a region of France).

See also:  LAI

Lai:

Broadly, a lai is a poem of adventure or ROMANCE intended to be sung. The oldest lais, written by Marie de France in the twelfth-century French court of Henry II, were based on the MINSTREL songs of Brittany. Written in VERSES of eight syllables, these lais were NARRATIVES about King Arthur and other Celtic heroes. LYRIC love songs of Provence were also known as lais.

In fourteenth-century England, poems similar to the lais of Marie de France were called Breton lays (Breton, from Brittany). The best known among these is Geoffrey Chaucer's Franklin's Tale. From the sixteenth century on, historical BALLADS were often called lays. Sir Walter Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel is a familiar example.

See also: BALLAD.