Thursday, March 6, 2014

Do you have a semi-detailed lesson plan for The Song of Roland?

You don't say how many days or the age of the students, but these thoughts can be tailored somewhat to fit within your needs.

First, as a notable medieval chanson de geste, it is worth exploring how the text does and does not follow the traditional epic conventions established by Homer and Virgil. This would mostly allow you to explore the characteristics of a medieval epic hero and the obstacles he overcomes. Epics, in addition to war, focus on cultural values and the individual's duty toward them. This poem has many sections that offer explorations of loyalty and bravery and honor, so if you have another text to use by way of comparison, you can highlight how the Roland poet elevates certain values appropriate to the Carolingian Empire.
Form is also brilliant in this poem, which makes it a good text to discuss repetition, parallelism, and antithesis. The manuscript is incredibly tight, and one can find antithesis at the level of character, action, and syntax. Parataxis is especially important here, as one sees the poem offering multiple repetitions without conjunctions. Parataxis exists also on the level of the stanzas, or laisses, as we see especially important plot moments repeated. It can be hard for readers to understand the purpose of these repetitions, but they function like camera shots in a music video—showing the same moment from slightly different angles.
While relating the famous Battle of Roncevaux in 778, the poem seems to address the eleventh-century world more immediately. Discussion of the poem's clear acts of propaganda—or at least the way existing manuscripts used perhaps oral versions of the story to advance French interests—makes for a good lesson in textual study. The poem certainly plays loose with some basic facts of the story, particularly with regard to the Basques rather than the Muslims attacking the reargard. The Christian sanctions of several rather offensive portraits of Muslims in Spain are pretty obvious and need to be addressed to correct the historical record. Here, Charles's biographer Einhard might be useful for a text-by-text comparison of fictional versus historical (even given medieval tendencies toward hagiography) accounts.

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