A short narrative or lyric poem of medieval French and Breton tradition, composed in short rhyming couplets and typically telling a single episode of love or adventure, associated above all with Marie de France, whose twelve surviving lais are the form's classical model.
Facts
Place of OriginBrittany and northern France, 12th century. 1 StructureOctosyllabic rhyming couplets of variable total length, organized around a single narrative episode rather than a fixed stanza pattern. 1 Notable ExampleMarie de France's Lais, including "Lanval" and "Bisclavret." 1 Connections
Associated With
Chaucer frames The Franklin's Tale explicitly as a Breton lai in the Canterbury Tales prologue to that tale.
Form Of Genre
Source The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Sources
1. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
Princeton University Press
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