Marie de France was a medieval poet who was probably born in France and who lived in England during the twelfth century. Prominent among the earliest poets writing in the French vernacular, Marie de France helped shape the style and genres of later medieval poetry. This Norton Critical Edition includes all of Marie's lais (short narrative verse poems); selected fables; and a generous excerpt from Saint Patrick's Purgatory, a long poem based on a well-known medieval legend. Each text is accompanied by detailed explanatory annotations. For comparative reading, two lais, Bisclavret and Yonec, are accompanied by Marie's facing-page originals. Contexts is thematically organized to provide readers with a clear sense of Marie's Inspirations. Topics include The Supernatural, Love and Romance, Medical Traditions, Fable Sources and Analogues: Similar Themes, and Purgatory and the Afterlife. Ovid, St. Augustine, King Cnut, Chaucer, Andreas Capellanus, Boccaccio, Aristotle, and Bede are among the authors included. From the wealth of scholarly work published on Marie de France, Dorothy Gilbert has chosen eight essays that address issues of history and authorship as well as major themes in the lais, fables, and Saint Patrick's Purgatory. The contributions are Thomas Warton, Abbe Gervais de la Rue, Joseph Bedier, Leo Spitzer, R. Howard Bloch, E. A. Francis, Jill Mann, and Jacques LeGoff - Marie de France's beautiful poems of courtly love, enchantment and mystery are now available in a Norton Critical Edition.