Essays on Song Of Roland

The Song of Roland is, perhaps, the most monumental work of French chanson de geste. It is regarded as one of the most important works of its time period and it tells the story of King Charles, who “has been in Spain for seven full years”, fighting the Saracens and their king Marsille. The poem begins with Marsille holding court with his baron, in order to find out a decent solution for the approaching Franc problem. Although the depiction of the council does not inform the reader about Marsille’s character or his intentions, at the first section of ...

- Literature produced in early Old English, a Germanic language with a Celtic imagination, expressed in Arthurian legend - Legends of knights and honor - Chivalric code - Origin - How chivalric code was passed on - Definition Dark Ages or commonly known as the ‘Middle Ages’ or the medieval era. This period is called ‘middle’ because it was midway between the end of the Holy Roman Empire in the fifth century and the beginning of Renaissance in the fourteenth century. However, this period in history does not have precise dates and most of the ...

The eight pieces of writing we are analyzing for this assignment have many common themes. Love, war, loyalty, death, and peace are all themes I noticed in the readings. This essay will focus on the theme of peace in the selected readings. Peace is thought of by some as the opposite of war, but it can also be an inner peace, the absence of conflict, or a feeling of calm or contentment. As I read each piece, I was struck with the thought that each story had at least one death in it, and from each death came some sort ...

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Since time immemorial, the issue of gender has been subject to much debate. Literature captures gender perceptions of people in the past and the widespread sentiments of gender roles and equality back then. More often than not, women and men were boxed into the same set of roles in many classical literary pieces. Women were always portrayed as frail, gentle, submissive and passive. They obeyed their husbands and fathers without question. Men in classic literature always took on roles that characterized them as brave, strong, aggressive and initiator. Decision-making was their turf and they occupied positions of ...

Introduction

Crusade is a term that originates from the Christian world which relates for a violent aggression of a people towards a certain system. In the early years prior to the birth of the religion, there were crusades that were done for many causes. These were both religious and secular events. However, the term crusade came to have its roots in the ninth through to the sixteenth century when the western community used various crusades to help the Christians in the land of Jerusalem to regain some of their privileges that they had been denied by the Muslim who conquered the land (Ali, 78). ...

A beautiful chanson de geste, or literary work celebrating the deeds of a hero, the Song of Roland could be easily dismissed by a casual observer to simply be a lovely poem. Such an observer might class it with the legend of King Arthur; he or she would not be far wrong. Though the Song of Roland is much older than the legend of King Arthur, it has both idealized heroes doing some impossible things such as fighting after they have burst their temples while blowing a horn. Yet this chanson de geste also has important historical significance for being the oldest surviving ...