La Chanson de Roland

The text and a line-by-line prose translation are printed on facing pages. Professor Brault's editing of the Oxford text—including emendation of the scribe's obvious errors and new readings of garbled or partially obliterated words—has been commended for its accuracy (Speculum) and reliability (French Forum). His translation has been praised as "lively and dependable" (Romance Philology), "fluent and colloquial" (French Review), and "the most correct . . . in a modern vernacular" (Olifant).

Directed to the student of medieval culture and society, Professor Brault's introduction places La Chanson de Roland in the context of the French epic tradition, Charlemagne's Spanish campaign of 778, the legend of Roland, and the linguistic and literary issues raised by the Oxford text. Among topics covered are the debate over the "traditionalist" versus the "individualist" theory of composition, the relation between history and myth, the epic's reflection of prevailing social beliefs and values at the time of its composition (about 1100), and the literary devices employed by the unknown author. The introduction concludes with a note about special problems in editing and translating the Oxford text. An annotated bibliography introduces leading works relating to La Chanson de Roland.

Gerard J. Brault is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor Emeritus of French and Medieval Studies and Fellow Emeritus of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at The Pennsylvania State University. He began his research for this landmark edition in 1968 while a Guggenheim Fellow and Fulbright-Hays Research Scholar in Strasbourg, France. In 1978, the year it appeared, this work was selected by Choice: The Journal of the Association of College and Research Librarians as an Outstanding Academic Book. In 1985, Professor Brault was elected International President of the Société Rencesvals (pour l'étude des épopées romanes), the only American ever to serve in that office. The author of seven other books and more than a hundred articles, he is also internationally known for his research in medieval heraldry and in French-Canadian language and culture.

Literary Studies