Miyashiro, Adam. "Comparative epics: Teaching La Chanson de Roland." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/comparative-epics-teaching-la-chanson-de-roland. [Date accessed].
Comparative epics: Teaching La Chanson de Roland
The epic as a political and racial tool in the 11th century.
La Chanson de Roland, written in the 11th century, recounts the battle of Roncevaux in 778 CE. Teaching this epic functions as a baseline from which to compare and expand on the epic tradition in the medieval world. La Chanson de Roland praises the valiance of crusading and the moral superiority of Christianity, while villainizing an imagined Muslim enemy. Contextualizing the political and racializing mission of the poem offers students a perspective on how epics shaped and were shaped by the values of their historical moment.
Further learning
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La Chanson de Roland and white supremacist medievalisms
La Chanson de Roland as a national epic was a product of both European nationalist and colonial aspirations. It's important for students to understand how the poem and its histories can reiterate Eurocentric white supremacist values if not properly contextualized.
Recommended
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Ham and the rationale for colonization
The Hamitic myth was used as a justification for the colonial endeavors of European countries in the late medieval period. This rhetoric traveled to the Americas and became a theological reasoning for the institution of American chattel slavery.
"Merciless Beauty" and carceral justice
“Merciless Beauty” is a poem written in a late 14th-century English that may or may not be Chaucer’s but is highly comparable to Chaucer’s usage. Reading the poem alongside the film The Prison in 12 Landscapes, students are asked to make connections between the poem and the film and their formal examinations of time, incarceration, and repetition.
