SOURCE: "The Inscription of a New Audience: Marie de France's Espurgatoire Saint Patriz," in Romance Languages Annual, Vol. V, 1993, pp. 57-62.

In the following essay, Leonard argues that through her Espurgatoire Saint Patriz, Marie offered up the story of Saint Patrick to a wider audience, translating it as she did into French from Latin and embellishing upon the story to make it accessible to people living and working outside of monasteries.

In her least-studied work, the Espurgatoire Saint Patriz, Marie de France is involved in the translation of one form of language into another. In the Lais, the poet transformed the orally transmitted Celtic lay into written French verse. In the Fables, Marie claims to have translated King Alfred's Aesopic fables from English into Romance. The Espurgatoire undergoes similar treatment as the Lais and Fables in that it is transformed through translation by Marie. The literary circumstances surrounding...