Gerard J. Brault – författare

Gerard Brault’s 1984 student edition of La Chanson de Roland has become a standard text in classrooms. It contains the text and translation from his 1978 analytical edition along with an introduction illuminating the poem’s historical and literary background and significance. This new revised edition contains a new preface and makes significant improvements to both the text and the bibliography.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 to La Chanson de Roland.

Published to observe the twelfth centenary of the Battle of Roncevaux, the event that inspired the Chanson de Roland, this edition provides the first systematic analysis of the entire poem. Professor Brault's edition also incorporates the considerable scholarly work done in the half century since the Bedier and Jenkins editions appeared.The underlying theme of this new edition is that the poem is a Christian hero. As imagined by the poet Turoldus—writing about 1100, at the time of the First Crusade—Roland, the nephew of Charlemagne, had no faults and accomplished mighty deeds in warring against the Saracens. The introduction compares the known historical facts about the Battle of Roncevaux with the Roland legend, with various versions of the poem, and with the Oxford text. Christian thought and sensibility are shown to permeate the Chanson de Roland, in its character portrayal and narrative development, as well as in its tone and diction—and to provide its thematic unity and metaphorical consistency. Influences of the oral tradition of the chansons de geste are demonstrated, as are evidences of the accompanying gestures used by the jongleurs in interpreting these works.The Commentary organizes discussion of the 4002 verses into 49 units. The method of analysis is eclectic, combining thematic criticism with philology, exegetical interpretation with iconography. The 66 illustrations, primarily from Romanesque works of art, clarify key passages

Brault has ably managed to weave the dual history of French Canadians -- Acadians and Québécois -- into the fabric of his account of the history and development of Franco-American culture and its contemporary situation. Drawing upon historical works and the literature of the period, the author provides a detailed description of early life in Quebec and Acadia and analyses the forces which led to migration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Brault is himself an American of French-Canadian descent. A brief account of his own family history provides important insights into the experience of being Franco-American, and offers a perspective from which it is possible to understand how members of this group can feel close to Canada and to France while remaining solidly and patriotically American.