Explore the Craft of Writing Poetry French Verse
The Lai Family of forms are French, 12th century variable forms that share a narrative nature and in all but the Kyrielle, long / short lines. The style of writing is attributed to a French noble woman simply known as Marie. She has since been named by historians as Marie de France.
The Lai is a short story in verse. In its strictest form it is a verse form with a rhymed syllabic pattern in three tercets. The elements of the Lai as verse form are:
a narrative, tells a story.
usually a nonet, 9 lines made up of 3 te