The First Stanza of The Song Of Roland

There is no place where we are told about these seven years except for the first stanza, for the rest of the poem tells about specifically the seventh year of Charlemagne's war in Spain. This stanza is definitely a brief summary of background of the whole poem, and the poet gives the course of the story immediately at the beginning. So with this opening, audiences have the basic idea of the story, which will be developed in the rest of the poem that is built upon the same basic idea.

The first line of this stanza begins with the name, Charles, who is the king of Franks and it is entirely reserved for Charlemagne and his attributes. The first attribute referring to Charles is “the king” which could be simply taken as his title. But, just after that, the poet assigns another attribute, “our great emperor”, to Charles. Although

. . .
Therefore the poet sees being Christian far more superior to any goodness or any other high characteristics.

As I pointed out at the beginning, this stanza is a brief summary of the background and the course of the whole poem. The poet put forward the thesis that it is a war against evil and there is no place for compassion or peace in this holy fight. After this analysis, it is convenient to think that the poet wants to mean Saracens deserves the occupation by Franks. We cannot know for sure what the poet wants to mean by calling Spain as the proud land, because it is not explicit at all. this second one seems to be very same as the first one at first glance, it means more than a title. Saracens really haven't got a chance, for they are not Christian. Subsequently the theme of the first stanza could be said to dominate over all other possible themes in the whole poem. Moreover it might be taken as being arrogant which means a domineering and overbearing attitude towards others. With these very first lines, we definitely know that Saracens will lose and suffer near death. Hence the poet gives the most of the credit to Charles in here too. So we have to deal with some implicit meanings to come to a reasonable conclusion.

Kaplanlioglu, 2

Beginning with the second line, we are introduced to the action part of the story. On the next line, the poet refers Spain as the “proud land”, which is “as far as the sea”. And the idea, that the pagans are always wrong and the Christians are always right, gets stronger in the rest of the story.

Common topics in this essay:
Gods Christians, King Marsile, King France, Frank Furthermore, Spain Saracens, Christian God, Spain Hence, Christians Saracens, Marsile Saracens, , basic idea, rest poem, brief summary background, developed rest poem, theme stanza, idea story, poet mean, sea poet, developed rest, proud land, basic idea story, spain proud land, summary background, brief summary,

Approximate Word count = 890
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

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