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liketheday's review
4.0
Guys, when I was a dozen or so stanzas into this poem, I was ready to come to Goodreads all, ugh, poetry, I forgot how hard it is to read and there are too many characters and they all have seven names each and I don't know if it's the story or maybe Dorothy Sayers is not a good translator but hey I finished it, only one more Read Harder Challenge book left to go.
And then I got to the fighty bits.
GUYS. I don't know if Dorothy Sayers is a good translator in the sense of accurately presenting the story but her skill at creating poetry out of translated words is top notch. I could have finished this book half an hour earlier if I hadn't spent so much time reading out passages to my husband and marvelling at the little turns of phrase used to keep the rhyme and the meter.
Also those passages are BRUTAL. The French do not skimp on the detail when it comes to explaining how they stabbed somebody straight through their armor and body and out the other side and then flung them a spear's length across the battlefield, or how they swung their sword and cleaved not just the enemy through his head and down his body but also the horse he was sitting on as well. The middle bit of this book is just stanza after stanza of people being murder-deathed and I'm not gonna lie, I was here for it. Am still here for it.
Poetry is still hard to read and if I had to retell the story now there would be a few places I'd be like, well, I have no idea how we got to this point but then someone got their hand chopped off maybe?, but that's cool because mostly a bunch of people die and then Charlemagne's Christians triumph over all the non-Christians in Spain and then forcibly baptize them, which, sure, and somehow Roland comes out on top even though (spoiler!) he dies well before the end of his own story.
And then I got to the fighty bits.
GUYS. I don't know if Dorothy Sayers is a good translator in the sense of accurately presenting the story but her skill at creating poetry out of translated words is top notch. I could have finished this book half an hour earlier if I hadn't spent so much time reading out passages to my husband and marvelling at the little turns of phrase used to keep the rhyme and the meter.
Also those passages are BRUTAL. The French do not skimp on the detail when it comes to explaining how they stabbed somebody straight through their armor and body and out the other side and then flung them a spear's length across the battlefield, or how they swung their sword and cleaved not just the enemy through his head and down his body but also the horse he was sitting on as well. The middle bit of this book is just stanza after stanza of people being murder-deathed and I'm not gonna lie, I was here for it. Am still here for it.
Poetry is still hard to read and if I had to retell the story now there would be a few places I'd be like, well, I have no idea how we got to this point but then someone got their hand chopped off maybe?, but that's cool because mostly a bunch of people die and then Charlemagne's Christians triumph over all the non-Christians in Spain and then forcibly baptize them, which, sure, and somehow Roland comes out on top even though (spoiler!) he dies well before the end of his own story.
zach_collins's review
1.0
Even though The Song of Roland is based on a real battle in medieval France, there is very little similarity between the poem and the battle. The poem is about Roland, the French King’s favorite officer, who is betrayed by a rival and his own pride into fighting an army of Saracens while outnumbered and without assistance from the main army. In reality, a low-ranking French official and his entourage were ambushed and killed by Basques. The characters were changed to create a tragic story and a propaganda piece to encourage participation in the Crusades; instead of an ambush of a relatively unknown official by other Europeans, the story is now about a proud knight heroically dying in battle against an evil Islamic army from Africa and the Middle East.
In the poem, Roland refuses to call for assistance when it is obvious that he is outnumbered, and his friends tell him he is stupid and arrogant to fight a hopeless battle, but they all agree to join in because they claim the Saracens are enemies of the King of France and of God and they therefore have a moral obligation to kill them. Even the bishop traveling with Roland is praised for riding into battle and cutting men in half. When it becomes obvious that he cannot win, Roland blows his horn to let the King know that he is in battle, like he should have done in the first place. The poet tries to make Roland a heroic figure, saying he is brave for fighting the Saracens and honorable for sounding his horn, when in reality he is stupid and arrogant for starting the battle in the first place and refusing to call for help when it could have helped. Roland reasons he would prove his honor or manhood or whatever if he won. The only thing he proved was that he could get himself and his army killed.
The poet obviously believes that all non-French people are evil heretics and the pinnacle of art is cutting men in half (about halfway through the poem is a long section listing all the Saracens the French knights cut in half). I know I shouldn’t have been expecting much, this is medieval Europe after all, but I picked this up after noticing it was part of the required reading of a local private school. After finishing The Song of Roland, I was horrified that teenagers are being forced to study this poem; the only thing I could get out of it was how Medieval France celebrated racism, jingoism and violence.
heyimaghost's review against another edition
4.0
I gave this four stars because I didn't really dig this translation as much as the Dorothy L. Sayers one. Maybe it's more accurate. I couldn't say, not speaking Old French, but this one felt awkward at times and I didn't care for some of the more modern phrasings.
leslielu67's review
3.0
Very gory account/song of the Battle of Roncevaux (Year 778), in which the Basques decimate Charlemaine's rear guard (including knight Roland). Liberties were taken in the telling of this battle, which pits the "good" (Christians) against the "bad" (paynims, muslims, or non-Christians). Oldest written piece of French literature.
racheladventure's review against another edition
3.0
After finishing The Song of Rolland, I am struck with how many arguments it raises for war and the justifications it seems to give for it. While there is much to point out from the text, I think the clearest examples of this process is found in the Christian symbols, defending the Franks position as “right,” and in dehumanizing the enemy.
It is difficult to leave Sunday school in our 21st century LDS paradigm and reasonably see how Rolland could be portrayed as a Christ figure. For me, the major problem I had with that image initially was that he seems to have so much pride that he is blinded from reason and cannot even stoop to ask for help when his life, and also the lives of the ones he loves, are in jeopardy. Even Charlemagne admits that Rolland’s great pride is a “wonder that God has stood it for so long” (1774). Yet, the important thing to realize here is that if we were to be living during the time when this text was written we would have very different ideas of what an ideal Christ should be. I could not help but notice the many similarities found in Beowulf. Because of the prevalence of war, portraying Christ as a warrior type figure was seen as the ideal to society. Beowulf frustrated me a great deal because of his pride issues from my perspective, yet he was revered for it. It is texts like these that allow us to see what society was like back then and what their values were. I think here with Rolland it is the same case. Pride is not what we would think of it in our paradigm today.
More Christian symbols that seem to justify the war against Spain are all over this text. We have the swords, which resemble the cross, the Bishop’s weapon, and also the pretense itself. The whole reason why Charlemagne is in the right to go an invade countries like Spain is that he is bringing about Christianity and a higher law to the “pagans.” Constantly the text defends this position by showing God’s favoritism on the Frank side. We see places where God’s will is done, or when angels come and give aid, but then we see nothing but frustration on the pagan side. In addition, we see multiple exclamations of the whole “I am right and you are wrong” argument. This, I believe, is necessary to ensure us that the Franks are justified in their war. Sure Rolland is killed, and they pray in order to properly revenge him (which does not seem to coincide with the Sermon on the Mount), but there were sons and brothers and other loved ones lost on the Spanish side that we are not to give notice to (3109). In order to keep us doubtless on the good side, we are given messages like “you well know that I am in the right against the pagans” (3412) and “we are right, but these wretches are wrong” (1211).
And last, in order to properly defend the Franks as in the right, it is necessary to dehumanize the enemy. The description of their homeland is a place “where the sun does not shine…rain does not fall,” the land is black, and it is a place where “some say that the devil lives,” presenting a dark image of what we are to believe is innately bad (980-983). The people are constantly referred to as “pagans,” yet anyone with any basic background knowledge of world religions knows that “Muhammad” and “Apollo” are never going to be found in the same sentence coming from a Muslim (2580-2590). Yet, the text throws all of these other religions into that “other” category, assuming that they are blatantly wrong, and that there is no need to separate them out. Ironically, I could not help but see that when Charlemagne says, “you can avenge yourself of this criminal race,” it sounds an awful lot like the jihad most people understand from Islam that defends violent behavior if it is at a great moral cause. Granted I am not an expert in Islam and I think our general notion of what the jihad means in our society could use some clarification, but in this case I think we are shown a striking similarity between the good and the bad sides of this story.
Of course, all of these justifications come to nothing when at the end of the story Charlemagne is called to battle against some other pagans, though having “no wish to go” (3999-4002). Yet he will ride off again in defense of yet another war, and the cycle will start all over again. This exposes the fallacy in Ganelon’s argument to King Marsile, that if you engage in this war “you will have no more war as long as you live” (595). Based on this text, I am left to believe that war is not a means to bring about peace.
It is difficult to leave Sunday school in our 21st century LDS paradigm and reasonably see how Rolland could be portrayed as a Christ figure. For me, the major problem I had with that image initially was that he seems to have so much pride that he is blinded from reason and cannot even stoop to ask for help when his life, and also the lives of the ones he loves, are in jeopardy. Even Charlemagne admits that Rolland’s great pride is a “wonder that God has stood it for so long” (1774). Yet, the important thing to realize here is that if we were to be living during the time when this text was written we would have very different ideas of what an ideal Christ should be. I could not help but notice the many similarities found in Beowulf. Because of the prevalence of war, portraying Christ as a warrior type figure was seen as the ideal to society. Beowulf frustrated me a great deal because of his pride issues from my perspective, yet he was revered for it. It is texts like these that allow us to see what society was like back then and what their values were. I think here with Rolland it is the same case. Pride is not what we would think of it in our paradigm today.
More Christian symbols that seem to justify the war against Spain are all over this text. We have the swords, which resemble the cross, the Bishop’s weapon, and also the pretense itself. The whole reason why Charlemagne is in the right to go an invade countries like Spain is that he is bringing about Christianity and a higher law to the “pagans.” Constantly the text defends this position by showing God’s favoritism on the Frank side. We see places where God’s will is done, or when angels come and give aid, but then we see nothing but frustration on the pagan side. In addition, we see multiple exclamations of the whole “I am right and you are wrong” argument. This, I believe, is necessary to ensure us that the Franks are justified in their war. Sure Rolland is killed, and they pray in order to properly revenge him (which does not seem to coincide with the Sermon on the Mount), but there were sons and brothers and other loved ones lost on the Spanish side that we are not to give notice to (3109). In order to keep us doubtless on the good side, we are given messages like “you well know that I am in the right against the pagans” (3412) and “we are right, but these wretches are wrong” (1211).
And last, in order to properly defend the Franks as in the right, it is necessary to dehumanize the enemy. The description of their homeland is a place “where the sun does not shine…rain does not fall,” the land is black, and it is a place where “some say that the devil lives,” presenting a dark image of what we are to believe is innately bad (980-983). The people are constantly referred to as “pagans,” yet anyone with any basic background knowledge of world religions knows that “Muhammad” and “Apollo” are never going to be found in the same sentence coming from a Muslim (2580-2590). Yet, the text throws all of these other religions into that “other” category, assuming that they are blatantly wrong, and that there is no need to separate them out. Ironically, I could not help but see that when Charlemagne says, “you can avenge yourself of this criminal race,” it sounds an awful lot like the jihad most people understand from Islam that defends violent behavior if it is at a great moral cause. Granted I am not an expert in Islam and I think our general notion of what the jihad means in our society could use some clarification, but in this case I think we are shown a striking similarity between the good and the bad sides of this story.
Of course, all of these justifications come to nothing when at the end of the story Charlemagne is called to battle against some other pagans, though having “no wish to go” (3999-4002). Yet he will ride off again in defense of yet another war, and the cycle will start all over again. This exposes the fallacy in Ganelon’s argument to King Marsile, that if you engage in this war “you will have no more war as long as you live” (595). Based on this text, I am left to believe that war is not a means to bring about peace.
deranged_pegasus's review against another edition
5.0
A rather interesting little book. The differences in thought and its change from then to now is very apparent and challenges ones own views.
tearsinthesea's review
2.0
WHY. The only way I could describe this book, is literally through WHY.
Never trust books laying in random cupboards.
Epic literature is really interesting, but this never really caught my attention. I can't get over the pushy plot and the strong language that puts me to sleep. The characters were all annoyingly similar and cowardly. Feudalism isn't my favourite thing to read about and I didn't feel anything towards anyone, any writing of the book.
I might try it again next time, but for now it wasn't worth the read.
Never trust books laying in random cupboards.
Epic literature is really interesting, but this never really caught my attention. I can't get over the pushy plot and the strong language that puts me to sleep. The characters were all annoyingly similar and cowardly. Feudalism isn't my favourite thing to read about and I didn't feel anything towards anyone, any writing of the book.
I might try it again next time, but for now it wasn't worth the read.
kayaguthrie's review against another edition
3.0
uh, dude, blood is NOT clear. brush up on your anatomy idiot.