Abstract
This essay investigates the importance of death in Chanson de Roland for the purposes of enacting and changing borders of cultural identity. It argues that Roland responds to contemporary concerns over Christian superiority vis-à-vis the Islamic world. The representation of communities in Roland is dynamic and changing over the course of the poem: Christian and Saracen communities are initially behaviourally different but with superficial qualities of resemblance that threaten to efface the perceived moral and chivalric superiority of Christendom. Roland’s slaying of a specific group of Saracen knights effects a potent clarification and reformulation of communal boundaries between Christians and Saracens, removing any ambiguity or illusion of moral parity between the two camps. Meanwhile, his own death allows for a consolidation of a uniform Frankish Christian identity and a transformation in social and political structures. Finally, the execution of Ganelon functions to qualm unsettling fears over lingering heresy and affirms the non-ethnic basis for Christian identity.
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Notes
Note on translation: This essay uses the edition and translation of the Oxford copy of the Chanson de Roland by Brault (1989). As this analysis is most concerned with the structural development of Roland, this paper will generally cite the English translation, except when there is a quotation of particular philological concern, in which case it will use the Old French. When closer attention to the original language is necessary, this essay leads with the Old French, followed by an English translation. Elsewhere, when such close attention is unwarranted, the English translation is used first, with some references to the Old French for clarification. Occasionally, the author has given direct translations from the Old French, all of which are clearly labelled as such. References to Fierabras are from the English translation of the poem by Newth (2010).
For a discussion of the role of Chanson de Roland in French nationalism, see DiVanna (2011).
For later examples of Saracen conduct, see Jean de Joinville’s chronicles in Chronicles of the Crusades.
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Adam, S. Lines of the Kingdom: Bloodshed and the Establishment of the Frankish Christian Identity in Chanson de Roland. Neophilologus 105, 491–506 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-021-09693-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-021-09693-7