Abstract
It is an anomaly that most readers of the Chanson de Roland seem to side with the villain, not the hero. Improbable as it is that the poet would have sympathized with this condemnation of his hero, the usual verdict seems to be that of Ganelon–that Roland is guilty of overweening pride. For example, the introduction to a new translation speaks of Roland's ‘presumptuous folly,’ and regards him as a ‘tragic’ hero who sins through pride and ‘impetuosity,’ barely redeeming himself by admitting his error (‘three mighty blasts of Roland's oliphant … proclaim his admission of error’) and dying in sanctity because he is penitent. The translator seems to agree, noting in her preface that ‘Roland's words of repentance [are] so convincing that he, who might well have sinned the same way again, can be carried off to heaven with angelic and human rejoicing’ (p. x). But an odd note creeps into the same sentence, for, she says, his ‘words of repentance are imprecise enough to leave his heroic stature untouched.’ Is heroism, then, incompatible with repentance? Perhaps this depends on what the hero repents. If Roland must repent because he has wickedly caused the slaughter of his own men, then he would seem to be more villain than hero.
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