The Song of Roland

The Song of Roland is an epic narrative poem and the most outstanding example of a chanson de geste. The poem consists of between 290 and 298 laisses, or verse paragraphs averaging about 14 lines each. Though the original manuscript of Roland has 291 of these verse paragraphs, editors and scholars have made their own divisions. The entire poem consists of 4,002 decasyllabic (10-syllable) lines. These lines usually have a caesura (implied pause) after the fourth syllable. The original’s rhyme scheme is either based on assonance, in which the last words of a line share a concluding vowel sound, or complete rhymes, in which the last words of a line share a concluding vowel and consonant sound. This sound is consistent within each laisse.

Since modern English contains fewer rhymes than Roland’s French, English translations of Roland rarely attempt to replicate the original’s meter or rhyme scheme. Glyn Burgess’s version translates the meaning of each line directly from the French but does not rhyme or maintain a consistent meter.

Contemporary editors often translate chanson de geste as “song of deeds.