Comparison of The Song of Roland and Beowulf - Research Paper Example

? Comparison of ‘The Song of Roland’ and ‘Beowulf’ The analysis of the old literature is highly important in a number of aspects, mainly because it reveals certain important facts about the era it was written in. There is significant difference in the old literature and the modern literature and this difference has originated gradually over time. Literature belonging to any period of time is influenced by the culture and other social aspects dominant in that specific time period therefore each literary work from different time periods is different from others. The literature from each time period reveals important information about the era in a unique manner. Most of the ancient literature is written about the heroic deeds of the people in that era and many of those literary works reveal the great deeds of the rulers and their successes. Due to the historic nature of the ancient literature, it is used to create links between different historic events. One of the forms of ancient literature is epic poetry which is a lengthy narrative poem based on a serious subject and it contains an exhaustive detail of a series of events or heroic events that hold significant importance to the nation. The following paper is a comparative analysis of two ancient literary works. The analysis would be centered on the question what do these literary works reveal about the epic literary form. Epic poetry has certain specified characteristics which are used to identify literature as a form of epic poetry. The following analysis will also be made in accordance with those characteristics of the epic poetry. It would also be observed whether there are any differences in the forms of both the literary works and the reasons behind the differences. ‘The Song of Roland’ is said to the oldest surviving major work of French literature. The actual date of the work is not known but in accordance with most experts, the literary work was produced in the middle of twelfth century (Bacon, 2002). The epic poem is present in a number of manuscripts and the oldest manuscript of the work contains 4004 lines of text. The number of lines of text in the epic poem is evident of the fact that the literary work provides an exhaustive account of the heroic deeds which were prevalent in the culture at the time this literary work was produced (Capels, 1973). This epic poem is said to be the best example of the type of the literary form which explains the heroic deeds which are celebrated in a nation. This type of literary form is known as chanson de geste which developed between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries. The poem is written in the form of stanzas which are of irregular length. This form of stanzas is known as laisses. Laisses are used in epic poetry because of the overall length of the poem. To describe whole events in the form of a poem is a highly challenging task and this is one of the reasons why this literary work is given very high importance in the literature. Due to the length of the epic poems and the requirement of the scenario being described in the laisses, different number of lines is used. Some scenarios are described in a small number of lines while others require exhaustive descriptions therefore the epic literary form used in this poem is such that the length of stanzas varies in accordance with the events being explained. The laisses in this poem are not like the rhyming stanzas but they are assonal. The last stretched syllable in each of the laisse would have the same vowel sound as every other last syllable of that laisse (Clemoes, 2008). From the aspect of the narrative, the poem makes excessive use of parallelism, thesis-antithesis pairs and repetition. These are the tools used in epic literary form in order to put emphasis upon a specific act or event. Repetition is used in order to show the importance of the event and to make the reader realize that the act is heroic and it is worth remembering. Parallelism is used provide more than one aspects of an event and to provide the reader with the liberty to justify the act based on all the aspects given to the reader. According to Robert Eisner, the poem provides a comprehensive summary of the events that took place in that era and the literary form of the poem provides an indication of the time period in which it was written (Eisner, 1973). There had not been a comprehensive analysis of the poem but Eisner provides a comprehensive analysis of the poem and provides significant insight on the literary structure and form. The poem makes use of stereotypes in order to describe its characters such as the warriors in this poem are described as being loyal and there are certain common traits among them such as valor. The character of Roland has also been described in accordance with those stereotypes and the author of the poem does not provide a deep character development. The story described in the poem moves at a fast pace but as mentioned above, certain events are repeated more than once in order to put emphasis on those events. In each repetition of the event, a new aspect is defined in order to provide a deep insight to the reader of the poem. Thus, it can be inferred that ‘The Song of Roland’ is one of the greatest epic literary forms which describes the heroic deeds of certain warriors and celebrated events of the history. The poem provides an insight of the era in which it was written and the literary form of the poem indicates the trends of literature prevailing in that era. ‘Beowulf’, on the other hand, is considered to be one of the most important works of the Anglo-Saxon literature. This epic poem consists of 3182 lines and this poem is also about the heroic deeds (Breizmann, 1998). Similar to ‘The Song of Roland’, this poem also consists of a large number of lines but unlike the other poem, this poem includes lines of bigger length. The poet of the poem is not known and the time period in which this poem was written is said to be between 8th century and the early 11th century. The form of the poem is based on alliterative verse which is different from the modern day poetry which uses rhyme as the basic structural tool. In alliterative verses, the first half of the line is linked to the other half. In order to follow the alliterative literary structure, the poet uses a pattern. Some of the letters used in the poem are not even found in the modern English and the pronunciation of the letters used is also different from the modern day English. Therefore, the alliterative structure may be difficult to understand for a normal reader but if all the pronunciations are read as they were actually written, it would be easier to understand the actual literary form of the poem. Unlike the parallelism, the tools that are used by the poet in ‘Beowulf’ for making the reader understand the context of the line are Kennings. Kennings are poetic descriptions of normal things, for example, a poet might call the sea as the ‘whale road’. There is extensive use of the kennings in ‘Beowulf’. There is also extensive use of elided metaphors in the poem (Eliot, 2010). Thus, it can be concluded that ‘The Song of Roland’ and ‘Beowulf’ are considered as two of the greatest literary works. Both these literary works provide important information about epic poetry. It can be observed that both these literary works are different from each other in a number of aspects such as, the length of verses, the literary tools used and the form of verses. Thus, it can be concluded significant information about the literary form of epic poetry is revealed from both these literary works. Works Cited Bacon, Leonard. The Song of Roland. Courier Dover Publications, 2002. Breizmann, Natalia. "Beowulf as Romance: Literary Interpretation as Quest." Modern Language Notes 113.5 (1998): 1022-35. Capels, Kathleen. "The Apple Incident in Laisse XXIX of The Song of Roland." Romance Notes 14 (1973): 599-605. Clemoes, Peter. Anglo-Saxon England. Ed. Peter Clemoes, Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge. Vol. 13. Cambridge University Press, 2008. 34 vols. Eisner, Robert. "In Search of the Real Theme of the Song of Roland." Romance Notes 14 (1973): 179-83. Eliot, Charles W., ed. Epic and Saga - Beowulf. Trans. Francis B. Gummere, et al. Cosimo, Inc., 2010. Read More