Roland

Summary

Dominique Pagani discusses Roland through the Song of Roland, which he calls the epic beginning of our poetry1. He treats Roland as the very type of the warrior hero of the chanson de geste, and returns to him several times between 2014 and 2023 to stress that love has little place there: it speaks of blows more than of love, it belongs to the epos, not the psyche2. The fair Aude only appears or waits, and there is no love story3. This trait serves as a point of comparison with what comes later in literature, whether Proust or the "orgy of sentiment". He also dwells on the image of the horn: the call that carries from afar, and Roland losing his blood as he blows into it, an image he links to a reflection on hearing and fascination45. Finally, in connection with the Grail quest, he notes that Charlemagne's nephew was probably killed by Basque raiders6.

1. 1Hesitation fascinated by hearing and by sight: Siegfried and Perceval12 Dec 2022 · 8:23
2. 2#4 Neo-fascism and the ideology of desire: on the thought of M. Clouscard26 Sept 2014 · 16:28
3. 3From the debauchery of sense to the orgy of sentiment29 May 2023 · 58:50
4. 4#9.24 “Ruled like music paper!” Nerval, Baudelaire (part 2)30 Jun 2021 · 58:08
5. 5Hesitation fascinated by hearing and by sight: Siegfried and Perceval12 Dec 2022 · 1:58:13
6. 6The quest for the Grail, sanctimony or sacrilege?1 Apr 2024 · 49:28

Summary produced automatically from 7 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.