Synopsis:
This edition brings together for the first time all the French texts of the Song of Roland, edited according to the highest scholarly standards. No reliable complete edition of the various versions of the French corpus of this poem, the most important of the chansons de geste and a recognized masterpiece of world epic, has been available until now. Seven specialists in medieval French literature have collaborated on this edition: Ian Short, Birkbeck College, University of London, for the Oxford version Robert F. Cook, University of Virginia, for the Venice 4 version Joseph J. Duggan, University of California, Berkeley, for the Chateauroux-Venice 7 version Annalee C. Rejhon, University of California, Berkeley, for the Paris version Wolfgang van Emden, University of Reading, for the Cambridge version William W. Kibler, University of Texas, Austin, for the Lyon version and the fragments Karen Akiyama, University of California, Berkeley, for the concordance of laisses Two of the texts, Oxford (3,995 ll., in a manuscript from the second quarter of the 12th century) and Venice 4 (6,011 ll., 14th-century MS), follow the tradition in assonance. The other five substantial texts, plus three fragments, are in rhyme: Chateauroux and Venice 7 (8,203 and 8,333 ll. respectively, both end of the 13th century), Paris (6,828 ll., acephalic, third quarter of the 13th century), Cambridge (5,695 ll., acephalic, first half of the 15th century), Lyon (2,932 ll., acephalic, late 13th or early 14th century), and the Lavergne, Bogdanow, and Michelant fragments (108, 160, and 352 ll. respectively, all late 13th century). The General Editor, Joseph J. Duggan, wrote the general introduction, a history of the successive editions of the Song of Roland. Karen Akiyama's concordance of laisses allows the reader easily to compare the versions. A complete list of works cited in the edition of the corpus is provided. Each edition is based on a new transcription made directly from the manuscript. The editorial method corresponds to the nature of each text. An introduction that treats questions of codicology, philology, and method introduces each text, and each is provided with a critical apparatus of rejected readings and paleographic notes, explanatory notes, an index of proper names, and a glossary of words and forms that are not found in the standard desk dictionaries of Old French. Ian Short presents the Oxford version, which has been edited 26 times since its rediscovery in 1833. Short follows an innovative and interventionist editorial technique, taking advantage of Oxford's formulaic language and correcting the text in accordance with the poet's linguistic and stylistic usage. This textof Oxford will be regarded as a landmark in the history of editions of Oxford. The Robert Cook edition of Venice 4, a text written in a hybrid language that combines French and Italian features, is specially adddressed to fit the needs of scholars immersed in the tradition of French epic. Chateauroux and Venice 7, lightly sprinkled with Italianate forms, are cognate versions, perhaps even copied in the same scriptorium. Joseph Duggan reconstructs the common model of the two texts while providing the complete text of Chateauroux in an appendix. Annalee Rejhon places the Paris version in the context of the cyclical manuscript in which it has survived, a compilation of poems tracing the deeds of the traitor Ganelon's lineage. Wolfgang van Emden's Cambridge edition is the first attempt to correct the readings of this idiosyncratic version. William Kibler's Lyon is the first correctly transcribed text of this version. His edition of the fragments brings the three together for the first time. The versions vary substantially. The episode of Aude, 30 lines in Oxford, is expanded greatly, becoming at its fullest extension a 956-line episode in the model of Chateauroux and Venice 7. The Venice 4 version includes a 570-line episode, the taking of Narbonne, found nowhere else. The episode of Baligant, a thousand lines in Oxford, is omitted from the Lyon version. In the rhymed texts, new episodes are added (the miracle of the hawthorn bushes, the miracle of the hazel trees, Ganelon's two escapes, the deliberation over how to execute the traitor) and the trial of Ganelon is entirely recomposed. In addition, there are hundreds of other differences of detail among the versions, on the levels of plot and phrasing. Each version is a substantial retelling of the legend of the Battle of Roncevaux and its causes and aftermath, a narrative that changes according to the needs and tastes of a succession of evolving social and cultural contexts.
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