The First Stanza of The Song Of Roland Essays

The First Stanza of The Song Of Roland Essays The First Stanza of The Song Of Roland Essay The First Stanza of The Song Of Roland Essay Charlemagne, the king of France, has waged war in Spain against the Saracens for seven years. He has conquered the entire Spain and there isnt any city left to invade but only Saragossa, which is located upon a mountain. It is the city of pagan King Marsile. He has no love for God for he is a follower of Muhammad and besides, he prays to Apollo. No matter what he does, he will be unable to prevent his ruin. There is no place where we are told about these seven years except for thefirst stanza, for the rest of the poem tells about specifically the seventh year of Charlemagnes war in Spain. This stanza is definitely a brief summary of background of the whole poem, and the poet gives the course of the story immediately at the beginning. So with this opening, audiences have the basic idea of the story, which will be developed in the rest of the poem that is built upon the same basic idea. Thefirst line of this stanza begins with the name, Charles, who is the king of Franks and it is ent irely reserved for Charlemagne and his attributes. Thefirst attribute referring to Charles is ;the king; which could be simply taken as his title. But, just after that, the poet assigns another attribute, ;our great emperor;, to Charles. Although this second one seems to be very same as thefirst one atfirst glance, it means more than a title. At this point we have come to realize that the poet is also a Frank. Furthermore, here the tone is extremely emotional, for the poet expresses Franks; engagement and admiration to their king by these words. And this is developed in the rest of the poem as the concept of a good vassal. Beginning with the second line, we are introduced to the action part of the story. And we learn that the King of France is on a successful campaign in Spain. On the next line, the poet refers Spain as the ;proud land;, which is ;as far as the sea;. We cannot k