Title: La genèse de la Chanson de Roland
First published: 1954
Description: Recounts the historical, literary, linguistic and geographic sources of the epic tale of the French mediaeval knight, Roland, culled from the Scandinavian Sagas, the Lex Salica, the Chant of Hilderband, Muspilli, Héliand, the Evangiles of Otfried, Saint Léger, Saint Alexis, Sainte Eulalie, the Oaths of Strasbourg and the Chant of Louis. The Song of Roland is not only a French mediaeval creation, but a European one, whose geographic and cultural itinerary streams through the Spanish Roncevaux where the famous battle raged, the Anglo-Normand dialect in which it was written, the Northern-Germanic linguistic expressions and religious themes that embolden the plot.
Subjects: Chanson de Roland, Lex Salica, Nordico-Germanic, entonnoir, koinè épico-orale, monologues juxtaposés
Places: Oxford, Roncevaux
People: Charlemagne, Clovis, Grégoire de Tours, Louis le Pieux, Olivier, Roland
Time periods: The Middle Ages
LC classification: PQ1522 D4