¶ … Lais of Marie de France and the Song of Roland -- Epic Expressions of Romantic Cultural Imagination and a Romantic Epic of National Identity
Both The Lais of Marie de France and The Song of Roland are early works of medieval verse. The Lais hail from France, The Song from England. Both are stories that depict an area of history now lost to most readers. However, there the similarities between the two tales seem to effectively end, stylistically and thematically. The Song of Roland is an epic tale of the reign of the Great Emperor Charlemagne. Thus, The Song of Roland, for all of its use of medieval and fantastic narrative tropes, such as a woman who dies for love and the healing and miraculous value of prayer, has its basis in an historical and national French reality. In contrast, the Lais are short stories that are relatively self-enclosed and a historical in style. If they are set in history, it is the history of fairy tales once upon a time, not in any specific battle or date
To understand the background of The Song of Roland, it behooves a reader to know that the historical Charlemagne was born in 742, about 300 years before The Song of Roland was first recorded in any discernable manuscript. The Song was written in Anglo-Norman, while Marie's tales are written in an early form of French, notable according to the translator for its beautiful simplicity and its difficulty for being translated into literary English. (Hanning & Ferrante 25) Marie's language thus is colloquial, while The Song of Roland's is epic and national in its language and tone, as it fuses the language as well as the culture of the Angles and Saxons into a tale of Christian superiority.
The Song's climax revolves around a decisive battle in Spain, between Charlemagne and his Christian forces and the Saracens infidels. The Saracens outnumbered the French but Charlemagne emerged triumphant. The structure of the poem clearly shows this to be not a simply and accidental tale of military prowess, but a triumph of the values of the Christians over the pagans.
In contrast, The Lais of Marie...
In conclusion, practically everything connected to French culture and society, whether of ancient or modern origins, is protected, promoted and endorsed by the Minister of Culture, part of the French government and operated by a single cabinet member. Some of the areas included in this entity are museums, national monuments, the visual arts (movies and TV), the theatre, music, dance, architecture, literature and the French National Archives, similar to America's
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