Charlemagne, Roland, and the Islamic Other: Vicarious Reading and Virtual Identity A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL, OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Stephanie Kristin Lohse IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Susan Noakes, Adviser July 2007UMI Number: 3273147 Copyright 2007 by Lohse, Stephanie Kristin All rights reserved INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality ilustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscrist and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized ‘copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion UMI UMI Microform 3273147 Copyright 2007 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. 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Box 1346 ‘Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346© Stephanie Kristin Lohse 2007Acknowledgments I would like to thank first and foremost my final dissertation examining committee members: Ron Akehurst, who inspired me early in my doctoral studies by his own enthusiasm for the "meaning" of Old French words and medieval French literature; Kathryn Reyerson, who helped me refine both my own understanding and my arguments concerning twelfth- and thirteenth-century French nationhood; Bruno Chaouat, who brought a critical modernist perspective to his reading of my dissertation and provided many valuable suggestions, some of which I have addressed here and others which will serve me well as I further explore the questions this dissertation raises; finally, Susan ‘Noakes, my adviser, who always asks just the right "difficult" questions and who has a sift of articulating my thoughts more clearly than I can myself. For her years of support and encouragement, I cannot thank her enough. At acritical moment in the development of this project, I was chosen to participate in an exchange program which took me to Montpellier, France, where I found ‘materials critical to my research on nineteenth-century reception of the Chanson de Roland. I am therefore gratefill to the University of Minnesota Department of French and Italian, together with the Université Paul Valéry, for supporting this exchange. I would also like to thank the Department of French and Italian for the support given in the form of the Rathert Fellowship and the Summer Research Fellowship. have also benefited from the lively intellectual community of medievalists at the University of Minnesota. I owe a special debt to Ellen Wormwood, Alex Mueller, Matthew Desing, and Ana Adams, members of a dissertation writing group facilitated by the Center for Medieval Studies, for their careful reading of and thoughtful suggestions for my work, as well as their moral support and the lively discussions that every meeting engendered. Finally, I thank my family, both immediate and extended, for their support. My parents have always encouraged me in my academic endeavors and their faith that I will accomplish my life's goals has never wavered. This journey would not have been the same without the loving support of my husband Jim, my intellectual and spiritual soul mate; I thank him for his willingness to accompany me wherever my scholarly endeavors took us and for finding ways to make his own academic and professional goals compatible with mine. Last but not least, I thank my son Zoltan, who politely waited until the day after my oral preliminary examination to join the family and who showed patience beyond his years when adventures sometimes had to take second priority behind work on "Mama's book."ii Abstract This dissertation studies the ways the Old French Chanson de Roland has been read and taught since the famous Oxford manuscript was rediscovered and published in 1837. It analyzes the ways nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century readings have contributed to a sense of French national identity, often constructed vis-a-vis an Islamic Other. In an examination of the twelfth-century Oxford manuscript version of the poem, I identify critical elements of a reading of the text as a narrative of a Manichean struggle between the Christian French (Good) and the Islamic Saracen (Evil). [ argue, however, that while the Old French text can lend itself to such a reading, the boundaries of alterity are in fact defined in a more complex way in the text than they may seem on first reading. I examine how the Manichean reading came to be canonical through the mediation of nineteenth-century editions and translations into modern French and how it was institutionalized through the inclusion of the Chanson, interpreted and presented in ideologically-inflected ways, into the national school curriculum. Finally, I demonstrate more complex ways of reading the Old French poem, which include an examination of the narrative displacement that allows the Islamic Other to directly construct the discourse of French identity, as well as a reading of the poem as an interrogation of the medieval clerical debate over forced versus voluntary religious conversion and the hybrid figures that are its result. I conclude that the interrogation of twelfth-century issues by this canonical text has been in part obscured by its cooptation in the service of the many conflicts which have affected nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe.iii Table of Contents Abstract .. 1. Introduction: Reception and National Identity Theory in Relation to the Chanson de Roland. Il. Medieval Reception of the Old French Chanson de Roland: Identity... Alterity ... Ambiguity?.. IIL, Re-Cycling Roland: Early Nineteenth-Century Reception of the Roland Legend and the First Printed Edition of the Oxford Manuscript. 107 IV. Oncherche des mots, on trouve le discours. On cherche le discours, on trouve des mots: Nineteenth-Century Translations of the Chanson de Roland 146 V. Best Seller or Required Reading? The Chanson de Roland and Education Reform in the Third Republic .......231 VI. AnOther Narrative of "Most Christian" France: When Alterity Speaks the Discourse of Identity.. 268 VIL Go voelt li reis par amur cunvertisset: Religious Conversion and Hybridity in the Chanson de Roland . 301 Conclusion: "La France des croisades et des cathédrales"?. 330 Works Cited... 1334Chapter] Introduction; Reception and National Identity Theory in Relation to the Chanson de Roland “Paien unt tort e chrestiens unt dreit'" Roland's unqualified assertion of the divine authority that legitimates the Spanish campaign of Charlemagne and his loyal French troops is well-known to scholars of medieval French literature and history. These scholars are joined by many French people outside the academy who "know" the message of the Chanson de Roland — often through limited or no contact with the physical text itself. A binary opposition of pagans versus Christians — and its extension to Saracens and French ~ has been at the heart of the dominant accepted reading of the Chanson ever since Francisque Michel's 1837 publication of the Oxford manuscript. The 2002 Dictionnaire du Moyen Age describes the Chanson de Roland as a celebration of the fight against the Infidel, a poem whose message concerns above all the struggle of Good versus Evil: " La Chanson de Roland. This famous citation occurs at line 1015 and is echoed in other verses of the text, which I discuss in more detail below (13-14) and in chapter 2. Unless otherwise noted, line references are to the 1937 [rpt 1964] Bédier edition which is based on the text of the Oxford manuscript. Although Bédier's text serves as my primary reference for the Old French "text" of the Chanson de Roland, | also consulted Gérard Moignet’s 1989 edition (in searchable format on the ARTFL Project website), which claims to follow even more closely the Oxford manuscript, avoiding the "corrections" Bédier himself considered "necessary. Finally, consulted a facsimile of the manuscript, available in electronic format on the Oxford University website. Also known as Digby 23 of the Bodleian library, this manuseript is generally dated to the mid-twelfth century and is thought to be a copy of a text written in a continental French milieu in the latter part of the eleventh century, inspired in its turn by on an orally-performed chanson de geste. Other extant manuscripts of the text, none of which are identical and many of which are incomplete, range in date from the thirteenth through the fifteenth century. The text is translated into English as the Song of Roland.[...] la Chanson de Roland, dans la forme exemplaire qu’en présente le potme d'Oxford, est une ceuvre cohérente et maitrisée, ol s'expriment les préoccupations du monde contemporain de la premiére croisade. Elle célebre, a travers les figures héroiques de Roland, d'Olivier et de leurs compagnons, I'élan qui anime, jusqu'au martyre, les guerriers en lutte contre I'infidéle. Elle fait de cet affrontement, od s'opposent les deux moitiés du monde, chrétienté et paiennie, le combat du bien contre le mal, du droit contre le fort, un confit qui dépasser [sic] la dimension humaine, et oit Dieu, par les révélations quiil adresse & Charlemagne, par les miracles quill accomplit, ne cesse d'intervenir dans l'histoire terrestre pour appuyer l'action de ses serviteurs. (Vallecalle 257-258) The author of the entry also insists on the importance of a perceived “altérité dangereuse" (258). Yes, the Chanson de Roland tells us that pagans are wrong and Christians are right, and there are indeed elements in the text that reinforce this message. Furthermore, other texts and non-textual indicators from the same period suggest that the struggle against non-Christians was a concem of eleventh- and twelfth-century French society. For these reasons, the Oxford manuscript text of the Chanson de Roland provides rich material for the study of an us-against-them narrative of superiority. This anonymous Old French epic poem ~ more precisely termed a chanson de geste ~ composed toward the end of the eleventh century, glorifies the joumeey of Charlemagne and his Frankish army into Spain to battle the Saracens who occupy the territory. The events recounted in the Chanson are inspired by a real military campaign, but most of the details ~ minor and ‘major —are pure fiction, When the Chanson begins, Charlemagne has been in Spain for seven years, and only Saragossa and its king Marsile have not yet fallen to his army. As a result of the treachery of the knight Ganelon, the rear guard of Charlemagne's army is destroyed in an ambush prepared by Marsile's men at Roncevaux. The eponymous heroRoland, Charlemagne's nephew, also dies in this part of the tale. Eventually, Charlemagne avenges the death of Roland and the others, Marsile dies, and his queen Bramimonde retums to France with Charlemagne and converts to Christianity. Charlemagne's ultimate victory includes the defeat of a massive pagan army led by the amiraill Baligant. Throughout the text the narrative seems to support Roland's assertion that pagans are wrong and Christians are right. However, I will argue that the Chanson holds the potential to say much more; it is a suggestive text that appealed to medieval audiences for both oral performances and in written form, and because of its polysemantic possibilities, as well as the need for any medieval text to serve multiple uses, even its medieval readers may have drawn conclusions that do not seem consistent with the most evident “meaning” of the text. It continues to speak to audiences today, with the potential to respond to questions its original author could never have imagined. I propose a study of how this text and the potential messages contained therein have been read at various points in the history of its reception. First, in the current introductory chapter, I establish my theoretical foundation for the chapters to follow. In the next chapter, I examine textual and contextual elements which would have supported a "traditional" reading of the text as a narrative of French superiority and dangerous alterity. Then I argue that in fact the boundaries of alterity are defined less rigidly in the text than they seem in such a “traditional” reading, which remains at surface level. Next, I examine the ways in which modem reception of the Chanson has been largely shaped by filters put in place by the nineteenth-century editors and translators of the Oxford manuscript. Finally, I suggestnew ways of reading the Chanson that might be of interest in postcolonial, multi- confessional (yet ostensibly lay) French and Western society. The final chapters of my study will focus on these other possible readings, which include reading the poem as an interrogation of the medieval clerical debate over forced versus voluntary conversion” and an analysis of the Islamic Other's role in the construction of a discourse of identity. ? will show that the Chanson de Roland has contributed to definitions of French identity in many different time periods and that Islamic others and Others have been critical actors throughout the history of readings of the Chanson de Roland and the discourses it contains. Virtual Identity: Thinking the Nation’ My study is based first and foremost on the belief that literary texts can and do play an important role in the construction of collective identity and that they serve as more than a simple reflection of a shared sense of self on which that identity is based. This study will therefore be informed by theories of identity formation as well as scholarship on what might be elements of a specifically French national identity. Second, 2 This later chapter on conversion and hybridity is inspired in its approach by Peter Haidu's examination of the use of alterty to interrogate defining aspects of the Self (The Subject of Violence), except that I will focus on the role of Christianity rather than that of feudalism in medieval French society. Haidu was much 100 quick, in my opinion, to downplay the importance of the fact thatthe Other was only different on the basis of his/her religion. I will examine the types of conversion narrated inthe text as well as the reader's understanding of changes in the nature ofthe person converted. I will also argue that the possibility of conversion destabilizes a dichotomy based on religious difference. > capitalize "Other" to emphasize, as Lacan does, that I am referring not to physical others, but rather to the notion of Othemess which allows for a conceptualization ofthe Self. “vyirtual” in the current study is used intentionally to evoke several meanings at once. ‘The firs is the definition provided by the American Heritage Dictionary: "Existing in the mind, especially as a product of the imagination." Second, as l explain below, my use of the term "virtual identity” is similar to Wolfgang Iser's notion ofthe virtual work. Finally, { would argue that identity is virtual in the same sense as virtual ‘memory on a computer; that i, itis more than the sum of its physical components.I will consider the role of literature (and the discourses it may contain) in collective identity formation, and finally, the mechanics of how a text interacts with a reader during primary and subsequent receptions. French national identity Scholars often refer to the "French" "nation" or to French “national” identity ina modern context, but the use of these terms becomes problematic ~ or completely unjustified, according to some scholars ~ when studying medieval society or literature. Modern scholars of the medieval period often struggle with a need to examine phenomena which do not fit tidily into the framework of twenty-first-century vocabulary or geo-political boundaries, and the current study is no exception, In fact, modem jurists of intemational law cannot agree on a definition of the term "nation," and one would be naive to assume a single meaning for any medieval interpretation of the term. In his 1983 study Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, Benedict Anderson defines "nation" as "an imagined political community — and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign" (6). He asserts that concepts of national identity were not "thinkable” in the Christian Middle Ages and that it was not until the eighteenth century that changes took place in "modes of, apprehending the world" which "made it possible to ‘think’ the nation" (22). This challenge did not go unanswered, and many scholars have since responded with examinations of earlier manifestations of "national" identities and altemative ways of defining nationhood. * Page references are to the 1991 revised edition.