LA Chanson De Roland ― Oxford Text and English Translation.

The text and a line-by-line prose translation are printed on facing pages. Brault’s editing of the Oxford text includes corrections of the scribe’s obvious errors and new readings of garbled or partially obliterated words, and his translation achieves both elegance and accuracy. This new edition pays special attention to the consistency of Saracen proper names.

The introduction places La Chanson de Roland in the context of the French epic tradition, Charlemagne’s Spanish campaign of 778, the legend of Roland, and the linguistic and literary issues raised by the Oxford text. Among the topics covered are the relation between history and myth, the epic’s reflection of prevailing social beliefs and values at the time of its composition (about 1100), and the literary devices employed by the unknown author. The introduction concludes with a note about special problems in editing and translating the Oxford text. An annotated and updated bibliography introduces leading works relating toLa Chanson de Roland.

Gerard J. Brault is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor Emeritus of French and Medieval Studies and Fellow Emeritus of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at The Pennsylvania State University. He began his research for this landmark edition in 1968 while a Guggenheim Fellow and Fulbright-Hays Research Scholar in Strasbourg, France. In 1978, the year it appeared, this work was selected by Choice: The Journal of the Association of College and Research Librarians as an Outstanding Academic Book. In 1985, Professor Brault was elected International President of the Societe Rencesvals (pour l'etude des epopees romanes), the only American ever to serve in that office. The author of seven other books and more than a hundred articles, he is also internationally known for his research in medieval heraldry and in French-Canadian language and culture.