Lai is a lyrical or/and narrative poem, which was cultivated amongst the trouveres or poet musicians of Northern France and Germany from the 13th to the late 14th century. Lai Poems are written in octosyllabic couplets and have great metrical variety. The poetic form of lines in each stanza (in modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe) is fixed at nine. As a result, the accompanying music consists of sections which do not repeat. This gives as the following rhyme pattern of a.a.b. The first two syllable links in the most difficult part of the Lai poems. The number of stanzas is not fixed and each stanza has its own rhyme pattern.
Virelai on the other hand is an adaptation of the Lai, but uses short lines to set the rhyme pattern of the next stanza. Here we have the following rhyme pattern a.a.b.a.a.b.a.a.b…b.b.c.b.b.c.b.b.c
Bretonn lai is a form of medieval French and romance literature where rhymed short tales (of 600 – 1000 lines). These short tales chronicle tales of love and chivalry, often involving supernatural and fairy world celtic motifs. The earliest Breton Lais to survive in writing are probably The Lais of Marie de France, thought to have been composed in the 1170s by Marie de France, a French poet writing in England at Henry II’s court between the late 12th and early 13th centuries.
List of Main Lai Artists
- Adam de Givenchi
- Charles d’Anjou
- Charles, Duke of Orléans
- Gautier de Coinci
- Gautier de Dargies
- Guillaume de Machaut
- Guillaume li Vinier
- J.R.R. Tolkien
- Marie de France
- Philippe de Vitry
- Tannhäuser
- Thomas Herier
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