L. P. Hartley is not a name that resounds in the historical temple of British fiction. Maybe some people remember his The Go-Between, probably because of the movie of the novel made in the early 70s. But one of his sentences is so true that it has outlived the novel and the film. "The past," says Hartley, "is a foreign country; they do things differently there."
It's a dangerous sentence, for reasons that resonate in the present moment of American history. But to tiptoe around the controversies that such a frame of reference would produce, I want to go back in time and space, from the resonance of the founding documents of America in the world of the 21st century to a poem that I had not read for a long time, La chanson de Roland.
I last read that poem when I was in eleventh grade. Back then I knew so very little about anything that the heroism of Roland seemed to me self-evident, an unquestionable aspect of the poem. When Roland's bestie, Olivier, sees the hundred thousand Sarrasins and païens, the "Saracens and pagans" who surround the twenty-thousand barons in the French rear guard led by Roland, he urges Roland, "sonnez votre cor," blow your horn, the olifant that Roland has with him. "Charles l'lentendra et l'armée reviendra"—Charles, leading the main force of the French, will hear it and return.
But Roland rejects the advice: "Ce serait folie!" That would be foolish. "En douce France j'y perdrais mon renom," in sweet France I would lose all renown were I to do so. Instead I will ride on the field, "sur-le-champ," to "frapper," lay about me with Durendal, my great sword, until "la lame en sera sanglante jusqu'à l'or de la garde," until the blade is bloodied up to its golden hilt. To sound the horn would be "tel reproche à mes parents," such a reproach to my parents, that they would never live it down. When Olivier insists that no one could accuse Roland of cowardice because, after all, "Grande est l'armée de la gent étrangere," huge is the strangers' army whereas we have but a tiny group, "une bien petite troupe," Roland roars back that his fierceness is made greater therefore, "Mon ardeur s'en augmente." There is more value in death, "Mieux vaut la mort," than in shame, "que la honte."
What a Mensch, I thought! Clearly Roland is the hero, and Olivier's advice a shameful retreat from chivalric honor. Olivier preserves his honor only by the courage of his really hopeless battling the enemies of la douce France.
I honestly did not remember from that first reading the reconsideration of the debate between Roland and Olivier when, faced with the disaster of the battle, Roland decides to sound the olifant so that "Charles l'entendra," Charles will hear it and then "les Français reviendront," the main force of the French will return. Olivier now repeats what Roland had said earlier, that "Ce serait grande honte et grand opprobre pour vos parents"—that would be great shame and opprobrium for your parents—because now to sound the horn "ne serait pas agir en brave," would not be to act bravely.
I am not a medievalist, and certainly not a French medievalist. But now I can't help but hear Olivier here as mocking Roland.
More straightforwardly, Olivier finally affirms that "Si le roi avait été ici," had the king been here, "nous n'aurions pas subi désastre," we would not have suffered a disaster. "Par ma barbe," by my beard—a mighty oath in the period—he continues, "Si je peux revoir Aude, ma gente soeur, vous ne serez jamais dans ses bras!" The statement here is enormously dismissive of Roland. Olivier recognizes that he will never again see his sister, Aude, who is promised in marriage to Roland, but were he able to see her again, he says, Roland would never be held in her arms. Roland wonders why Olivier is so angry with him, and Olivier's response is definitive: "Compagnon, c'est votre faute. It is your fault, companion: "La bravoure sensée," a sensible bravery, "n'a rien à voir avec la folie" has nothing to do with foolishness. Roland's refusal to recall the main force of the French army by blowing his olifant is outrageously foolish. So foolish, then, is Roland that Olivier, were it possible for him to see his sister again, would prevent Roland's marriage to Aude. And Olivier concludes, "Votre prouesse," your prowess, Roland, "aura fait notre malheur," will have caused our misfortune.
The bloody Archbishop Turpin intervenes at that point and reminds the two companions that they have pressing business, namely the force of enemies that is about to kill them all, to contend with. And of course Olivier leaves aside the argument, reaffirms his valiant courage, and engages the enemy. Soon enough he is killed in battle, but his death is glorious and the poem underscores the value of prouesse and bravoure.
And the poem on the whole recurs to the value of chivalric bravoure. To be sure, Charles grieves the loss of Olivier, Roland, Turpin, and all the other French barons. But the loss is grand, redounds to the honor of la douce France, and ultimately is certified by God himself, who sends angels and ministers of grace to celebrate the ultimate grand defeat of the Sarassins et païens.
In short, the direction of the poem coincides with my high-school sense of what should be done, what constitutes the manly honor of chivalric courage. Olivier's sarcastic mockery of Roland's chivalry disappears under the weight of Roland's having done what the brave, the preux man must do to persevere in his bravoure and vaillance.
Now much much older at this second reading, I hear Olivier's mockery with an ear attuned to the truth of what he says. I'm also alive to the way in which my historical moment coincides with that reconsideration of the argument that Olivier raises. Judged from the perspective of the current day, Roland is quite simply a fool, as Olivier insinuates. He is so full of the notion of masculine prouesse, prowess, that he sacrifices not only himself—a sort of suicide that he seems not only to seek but to deserve—but also the flower of French chivalry.
Can I judge Roland by our own sense of right and wrong? Of course I can do so—let me rephrase the question: shouldI judge Roland from my modern perspective? Would doing so be fair to Roland? to the poem itself? to the entirety of what the poem presents as the way things were done in the French middle ages?
