The Song of Roland

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss an early masterpiece of French epic poetry, from the 12th Century. It is a reimagining of Charlemagne’s wars in Spain in the 8th Century in which Roland, his most valiant knight, chooses death before dishonour, guarding the army’s rear from a pagan ambush as it heads back through the Roncesvalles Pass in the Pyrenees. If he wanted to, Roland could blow on his oliphant, his elephant tusk horn, to summon help by calling back Charlemagne’s army, but according to his values that would bring shame both on him and on France, and he would rather keep killing pagans until he is the last man standing and the last to die.

→ Listen on BBC Sounds website (UK only)
→ Or listen on: BBC (outside UK), Apple Podcasts

Guests

• Laura Ashe 11 episodes
  Professor of English Literature and Fellow in English at Worcester College, University of Oxford
• Miranda Griffin 2 episodes
  Assistant Professor of Medieval French at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Murray Edwards College
• Luke Sunderland No other episodes
  Professor in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Durham University

Reading list

• The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization, and Cultural Change, 950-1350
  Robert Bartlett (Penguin, 1994) Google Books →
• The Cambridge Companion to Medieval French Literature
  Simon Gaunt and Sarah Kay (eds.) (Cambridge University Press, 2008) Google Books →
• The Chanson de Roland
  Jane Gilbert (Cambridge University Press, 2008)
• The Song of Roland and Other Poems of Charlemagne
  Simon Gaunt and Karen Pratt (trans.) (Oxford University Press, 2016) Google Books →
• The Chanson de Geste in the Age of Romance: Political Fictions
  Sarah Kay (Clarendon, 1995) Google Books →
• The Ornament Of The World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain
  Maria Rosa Menocal (Little Brown, 2002) Google Books →
• King and Emperor: A New Life of Charlemagne
  Janet L. Nelson (Penguin, 2020) Google Books →
• Rethinking Heritage: Cultures and Politics in Europe
  Robert Shannan Peckham (ed.) (London, 2003) Google Books →
• The Chanson de Roland and the Invention of France
  Simon Gaunt (London, 2003)
• Theorizing Medieval Race: Saracen Representations in Old French Literature
  Victoria Turner (Legenda, paperback 2021) Google Books →

Related episodes

• The Battle of Tours
  
  16 Jan, 2014 940 History of Europe
• The Nibelungenlied
  
  1 Dec, 2022 830 German and related literatures
• Agincourt
  
  16 Sep, 2004 940 History of Europe
• The Holy Grail
  
  15 May, 2003 390 Customs, etiquette and folklore
• Le Morte d’Arthur
  
  10 Jan, 2013 820 English and Old English literatures
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
  
  13 Dec, 2018 820 English and Old English literatures
• The Battle of Valmy
  
  16 Jan, 2025 940 History of Europe
• Beowulf
  
  5 Mar, 2015 820 English and Old English literatures
• The Epic
  
  6 Feb, 2003 800 Literature, rhetoric and criticism
• The Carolingian Renaissance
  
  30 Mar, 2006 940 History of Europe

Experimental. For more related episodes, visit the visual explorer.

---

Programme ID: m00114m8

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00114m8

Auto-category: 841.1 (Old French poetry)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello. The Song of Roland from the 12th century is an early masterpiece of French poetry.