When studying the text of the Song of Roland, one should: pay attention to the artistic means used in the gesture; to explore hyperboles, repetitions, transfers of the scene, the nature of the flow of artistic time, descriptions of heroes, weapons, nature, depiction of struggle, battle of dispute.

The main methodological principle of the analysis is drawing a line between folklore and literature.

M. M. Bakhtin identified three main differences between the epic and the novel:

1. The subject of the epic is the national epic past, the "absolute past", in the terminology of Goethe and Schiller;

2. The source of the epic is national tradition (and not personal experience and the free fiction that grows on its basis);

3. The epic world is separated from the present, that is, from the time of the singer (the author and his listeners), by an absolute epic distance. (one)

An epic work of folklore (heroic epic) and literature (for example, a novel) stand on completely different laws and should be studied differently.

The main difference between folklore and literary epic works is the problem of authorship. A group of foreign researchers led by the French academician J. Bedier tried to prove the sole authorship of the Song of Roland. But most scientists have rejected this approach, they speak of a "collective author", of a "half-personal singer of the old epic", etc.

It follows from this that patriotism and other ideological merits of the "Song of Roland" do not belong to an individual author. In the “Song of Roland”, as in the heroic epic in general, a public assessment is presented, not a personal, but a nationwide court, while the court is not so much of the singer’s contemporaries as of the people of legendary times, the court of the forefathers, supported by all subsequent generations. This is the eternal and absolute judgment in the perception of medieval man, which is why even epic heroes are afraid of it (see verses 1013-1014, 1466, 1515-1517).

However, it would be a mistake to draw a conclusion about the uncreative nature of the singer's activity. The narrator was not allowed liberties (that is, the author's beginning), but on the other hand, accuracy was not required. Folklore is not learned by heart, so a deviation from what has been heard is perceived not as a mistake (as it would be when transmitting a literary work), but as an improvisation. Improvisation is an obligatory beginning in a heroic epic. The elucidation of this peculiarity leads to the conclusion that in the epic there is a different system of artistic means than in literature. It is determined by the principle of improvisation and initially acts not as an artistic, but as a mnemonic system that allows you to keep huge texts in memory and, therefore, is based on repetitions, constant motives, parallelism, similar images, actions. Later, the artistic significance of this system is also revealed, because the gradual universalization of the musical motive (recitative) leads to the restructuring of prose speech into poetic speech, the systematization of assonances and alliterations first generates assonance or alliterative verse, and then rhyme. Repetition begins to play a large role in highlighting the most important moments of the story.

In The Song of Roland, repetition affects all levels (from sound, verbal, compositional to plot, ideological). Repetition is the general law of the poetics of the Song.

Exploring the poetics of the "Song", one should dwell not on epithets, metaphors and other means characteristic of literature, but on various repetitions - the genuine poetic language of the oral forms of the epic. Considering figurative means, it is necessary to identify how their use differs from their use in literature. Let's take one example. In the Song of Roland, the phrase green grass occurs 16 times. In a literary work, the word "green" could not even be considered an epithet. But in folklore, a constant epithet does not serve to highlight the subject, but is a way of aggravating, concentrating its generic quality, that is, it acts in a function that is directly opposite to the function of a literary epithet. Grass can only be "green" and not dry, straight, just like a forest can only be dark and not sparse, a high mountain, a deep gorge, etc.

Two main trends are revealed in the depiction of reality refracted through the ancient consciousness: the trend of symmetry and the trend of asymmetry, heterogeneity of the epic world.

Symmetry is associated with the epic-improvisational poetics of the "Song of Roland", built on variable repetitions. We find examples of symmetry in the similar structure of the court of Charles and Marsilius, the same armament of the warring parties, the similar organization of councils, embassies, etc., in the common language of the opponents, which makes it possible to understand each other both in negotiations and on the battlefield.

But more important, defining is the tendency to depict the world as asymmetrical, heterogeneous, that is, it appears in the coverage from one position, and such a single point of reference is the position of the people themselves - the creator of the epic. Note that the forces in the struggle are almost always unequal, the heroes have to fight with superior forces, with a more powerful enemy. 20,000 Frenchmen, led by Roland, fight against 400,000 Moors; Charles leads 10 regiments, in which there are 350 thousand soldiers, against 30 regiments of pagans, in which there are over 1.5 million people; Roland fights 400 Saracens alone; thin Thierry fights with a huge Pinabel. But heroes that retain natural human proportions invariably turn out to be winners or (if they are secondary heroes), dying, inflict great damage on the enemy.

Another manifestation of the heterogeneity of the epic world is the different material density of people and objects. One can notice a trend: the body of a Frenchman has a greater density than the body of an Arab. The Moor is as if empty inside, so the spear easily passes through him and even knocks out the spine, the sword cuts the Moor in half (see tirades 93,94,95,97-100,104,106,107,114,119,124,145, 259, etc.). In contrast, the bodies of the French are comparatively impenetrable. The invulnerability of the hero's body and the permeability of the body of his enemy is a very ancient feature of the epic world (cf. the battle of Achilles and Hector, Cuchulainn and Ferdiad). The image of Roland is especially important in this respect. His body is, as it were, bewitched for enemies (see verses 2155-2160).

Objects (for example, the sword of Roland Durendal) can also have the ultimate material density.

In describing the death of heroes, another side of the heterogeneity of the epic world is revealed, namely, axiological heterogeneity. Olivier was killed in the back, Gauthier and Turpin - with spears thrown at them, the Moors throw spears and arrows at Roland. So, there is a division of blows into noble (from above and in front) and ignoble (from behind and from afar). Another example: the Moors choose an ignoble position for battle (the gorge gives them an advantage), while the troops of Charles are fighting the troops of Baligan on a vast flat area. The heterogeneity of the epic world is expressed in the fact that a blow is not equal to a blow, right is not equal to right, god is god, everything must be tested for truth. The dying French do not renounce their god, the dying Arabs overthrow their gods. Two outwardly equivalent rights (vassal and the right to strife, state and tribal) are tested by God's court, and it shows the superiority of one right over the other. Here is revealed the source of the victory of heroes over the strongest opponent - rightness (see verses 3366-3367).

In the epic world, rightness is not so much the consciousness of the correctness of one's actions as a materialized quality, fused with physical strength, with character. Or, in other words, rightness is the very heroic state of a person, which is why even all religious motives are focused not on heaven, but on the state of rightness. Man is not dependent in the epic world on the sky. On the contrary, the deity and nature are put to the test, playing a dependent (not on the person, but on his rightness) role. You should pay attention to the image of nature. She either tests the heroes (not by the equivalence of positions in the gorge), or helps them (day comes, so that the right fight would begin, night is always a way to stop the fight), or mourns for the heroes (see tirade 110). Nature is not separate from man.

Pay attention to the difference between epic hyperbolism and literary hyperbole. In literature, hyperbole usually serves to highlight some object, phenomenon, character, while in the folk epos everything is hyperbolized, and a separate hyperbole does not highlight anything, it is only a sign of the general concept of the hyperbolized world.

All the features and properties of the epic world of the "Song of Roland" (symmetry and heterogeneity, hyperbolism, etc.) are most clearly manifested in the scenes of struggle, battle, duel, dispute. In The Song of Roland, struggle appears as a permanent state of the epic world. None of the characters are participating in combat for the first time. Before the battle, the hero can live as long as he likes (Karl is 200 years old, Baligan is older than Homer and Virgil, etc.). In battle, it is instantly decided whether to live or die. A particular character often does not want to fight, to fight: Marsilia does not want to fight with Karl, Karl - with Marsilius, Ganelon is afraid of a dangerous assignment, Roland considers his appointment to the rear guard as a betrayal of Ganelon, Olivier suggests blowing a horn to avoid a massacre, Karl in the final scene again must fight (see verses 3999-4001). A character enters combat, becomes the hero or enemy of the hero, exits the combat, either victorious or dead, but the combat continues.

So, the struggle as a permanent state of the epic world, manifesting itself only through a person and the spheres subject to him. It does not depend on specific participants, nor on the means of its allocation, it is of an indefinitely personal nature. This can explain the little understood last tirade of the Song of Roland, which contradicts both the idea of ​​the victory of Christianity over paganism and the plot, according to which the battle was fought with all the forces of the pagan world. The appearance of some new pagans, again threatening Christians, can be explained by the irremovable, eternal state of struggle in the epic world of the Song of Roland and the indefinitely personal nature of this struggle.

Let's move on to the problem of the hero and pay attention to the fact that the artistic means in the depiction of an individual person have not yet been developed, the portrait has not stood out from the description and assessment, usually the appearance of the hero is merged with his armament by his action (putting on armor), and in general the characters of the main characters are variations on the general type of the epic hero in his ideal sound. The hero has not yet stood out from the mass of people, his emotional life is of a public nature (the heroes cry in front of everyone, tear their hair, faint, get angry, insulted, etc.), which does not imply internal hidden experiences. The personal beginning is not recognized. The hero (especially the king) rarely makes a decision without advice (hence the great role of advice as an element of the epic narrative). The personal principle (as the evil principle) triumphs in Ganelon, but he does not lose the impersonal, social principle either. The duality of Ganelon's behavior during the embassy is explained by the combination of two functions of the image (as an ambassador he must negotiate, as a traitor he must change).

Let us turn to the problem of replacement of heroes. The functions and attributes of even the most important heroes are transferred to others. After the death of Roland, Carl appoints Ginemann in his place. However, with the entry into the battle of Charles, the function of Roland passes to him. Therefore, Hinemann leaves the story (dies - tirade 250), the fullness of the heroization of the commander and the bravest warrior passes to Karl. Similarly, Marsilius is replaced by Baligan, etc.

Thus, the indefinitely personal nature of the epic world is coordinated with the replacement of heroes while maintaining their function. A paradoxical way out follows from the folklore approach to the "Song of Roland": this monument began to take shape long before the battle in the Ronceval Gorge in 778. Historical events, people, relationships were superimposed on the already created epic world. This is not about substituting historical names into a finished poem, but about the fact that even the first singer who began to sing Roland was not the author of the poem, because he introduced the heroes into the epic world that already existed in oral folk art, endowed the song with an already existing idea, used the system artistic means, which allowed only variation, and not original creativity. In other words, before the death of Roland, there was already a support for improvisation. This support did not coincide in everything with historical events, but they did not change it, but themselves obeyed it. The epic world is older than heroes and is rooted in time immemorial. Naturally, it is necessary to take into account the development of the most epic world over the centuries-old history of the creation of the “Song of Roland”.

Epic time acts as "the future in the past". This type of time shows a huge influence not only on the structure, but also on the very logic of the epic. Cause-and-effect relationships play an insignificant role in it. The main principle of epic logic is the “logic of the end” (let us denote it by the term “logical inversion”). According to the logical inversion, Roland did not die because Ganelon betrayed him, but, on the contrary, Ganelon betrayed Roland because he must die and thereby forever immortalize his heroic name. Karl sends Roland to the rear, because the hero must die, but weeps, sending him, because he is endowed with knowledge of the end.

It should be especially noted that the logical inversion completely removes the theme of rock. Not a fatal combination of circumstances, not the power of fate over a person, but a strict pattern of testing a character and erecting him on a heroic pedestal or depicting his inglorious death - such is the epic approach to depicting reality in The Song of Roland.

Combat as a state of the epic world. All the features and properties of the epic world of the "Song of Roland" (symmetry and heterogeneity, hyperbolism, etc.) are most clearly manifested in the scenes of struggle, battle, duel, dispute. In the Song of Roland, the struggle appears as an unchanging, permanent state of the epic world. None of the characters are participating in combat for the first time. In battle, it is decided whether to live or die. A particular character often does not want to fight, to fight: Marsilius does not want to fight with Karl, Karl - with Marsilius, etc. A character engages in combat, becomes a hero or hero's enemy, exits the combat, either victorious or dead, but the combat continues. Thus, the struggle is of an indefinitely personal character, it does not depend either on specific participants or on the means of conducting it. The fight is constant. This can explain the last tirade of the "Song of Roland", which contradicts both the idea of ​​the victory of Christianity over paganism, and the plot, according to which the battle was fought with all the forces of the pagan world. The appearance of some new pagans, again threatening Christians, can be explained by the irremovable, eternal state of struggle in the epic world of the Song of Roland and the indefinitely personal nature of this struggle.

Hyperbolism

Another trend in the construction of the early medieval epic world is hyperbolism, which differs from titanism in the loss of the direct meaning of exaggeration. Volumes reach unimaginable values, but listeners should not believe in them directly, the hyperbole acts as an indirect image of a more real world. Titanism, built on the direct meaning of increase, would require the hero to be enlarged along with the enemy. This, as has been shown, does not occur. Huge sizes in their direct meaning lose their appeal. One should distinguish between epic hyperbolism and literary hyperbole. In literature, hyperbole serves to highlight an object, phenomenon, character, while in the folk epic everything is hyperbolized, and a separate hyperbole does not highlight anything, it is only a sign of the general system of the world.

Space and time

The epic time has its own characteristics, which are sometimes difficult for the modern reader to understand. The basis of the epic ideal is the dreams of the people, but they are transferred to the past. Epic time thus appears as "the future in the past." This type of time has a huge impact not only on the structure, but also on the very logic of the epic. Cause-and-effect relationships play an insignificant role in it. The main principle of epic logic is the "logic of the end", which can be denoted by the term "logical inversion". According to the logical inversion, Roland did not die because Ganelon betrayed him, but, on the contrary, Ganelon betrayed Roland because he must die and thereby forever immortalize his heroic name. Karl sends Roland to the rearguard (part of the troops behind the main forces), because the hero must die, but cries because he is endowed with knowledge of the end.

Knowledge of the end, future events by the narrator, listeners and the characters themselves is one of the manifestations of logical inversion. Events are foreshadowed many times; prophetic dreams and omens also act as forms of foreshadowing.

It should be especially noted that the logical inversion completely removes the theme of rock. Not a fatal coincidence, not the power of fate over a person, but a strict pattern of testing a character and raising him to a heroic pedestal or depicting his inglorious death - such is the epic way of depicting reality in the Song of Roland.

Space and time of a real historical event

"The Song of Roland" ("Chanson de Roland") was recorded for the first time around 1170, it belongs to the epic of developed feudalism. It is based on a real historical event. In 778, the tenth year of the reign of the king of the Franks, Charlemagne (742-814), is under way. He proceeds to create an empire and carries out an unsuccessful campaign in Spain. A brief description of this campaign is contained in the work "Biography of Karl", written by the court historiographer Einhard. He noted that the two-month campaign to annex Spain, which had belonged to the Arabs (Moors) since 711, resulted in an unsuccessful siege of Zaragoza, which had to be lifted and retreated with troops. During the passage of troops through the Ronceval Gorge in the Pyrenees, the rearguard was attacked by the highlanders - the Basques, while the noble Franks died, including the prefect (official) of the Breton mark (a mark created in the 8th century to protect against the Bretons (the people living in the region of Brittany in northwest France; the Bretons are closely related to the Celts) Hruotland (obviously a prototype of Roland) Charles tried to avenge the loss of the rearguard to the Basques, but they scattered over the mountains, and Charles had to return to Aachen with nothing.

The event that took place in the Ronceval Gorge in 778, in the “Song of Roland”, as a result of folklore transformation, looks completely different: Emperor Charles, who is over two hundred years old, is waging a seven-year victorious war in Spain. Only the city of Zaragoza did not surrender. In order not to shed excess blood, Charles sends the noble knight Ganelon to the leader of the Moors Marsilius. He, mortally offended by Roland, who gave this advice to Karl, negotiates, but then cheats on Karl. On the advice of Ganelon, Charles puts Roland at the head of the rearguard of the retreating troops. The Moors (non-Christians) who agreed with Ganelon attacked the rearguard and destroyed all the soldiers. The last to die (not from wounds, but from overexertion) is Roland. Charles returns with the troops and destroys the Moors and all the "pagans" who have joined them, and then arranges God's judgment on Ganelon in Aachen. The fighter of Ganelon loses the duel to the fighter of Karl, which means that God is not on the side of the traitor, and he is cruelly executed: they tie his arms and legs to four horses, let them gallop - and the horses tear Ganelon's body to pieces.

When we talk about art, literary creativity, we are focused on the impressions that are created when reading. They are largely determined by the imagery of the work. In fiction and poetry, there are special techniques for enhancing expressiveness. Competent presentation, public speaking - they also need ways to build expressive speech.

For the first time, the concept of rhetorical figures, figures of speech, appeared among the speakers of ancient Greece. In particular, Aristotle and his followers were engaged in their research and classification. Going into details, scientists identified up to 200 varieties that enrich the language.

The means of expressiveness of speech are divided by language level into:

• phonetic;
• lexical;
• syntactic.

The use of phonetics is traditional for poetry. The poem is often dominated by musical sounds that give poetic speech a special melodiousness. In the drawing of a verse, stress, rhythm and rhyme, and combinations of sounds are used for amplification.

Anaphora- repetition of sounds, words or phrases at the beginning of sentences, poetic lines or stanzas. “The golden stars dozed off ...” - a repetition of the initial sounds, Yesenin used a phonetic anaphora.

And here is an example of a lexical anaphora in Pushkin's poems:

Alone you rush through the clear azure,
You alone cast a sad shadow,
You alone grieve the jubilant day.

Epiphora- a similar technique, but much less common, with words or phrases repeated at the end of lines or sentences.

The use of lexical devices associated with the word, lexeme, as well as phrases and sentences, syntax, is considered as a tradition of literary creativity, although it is also widely found in poetry.

Conventionally, all means of expressiveness of the Russian language can be divided into tropes and stylistic figures.

trails

Tropes are the use of words and phrases in a figurative sense. Tropes make speech more figurative, enliven and enrich it. Some tropes and examples of them in literary work are listed below.

Epithet- artistic definition. Using it, the author gives the word an additional emotional coloring, its own assessment. To understand how an epithet differs from an ordinary definition, you need to catch when reading, does the definition give a new connotation to the word? Here is an easy test. Compare: late autumn - golden autumn, early spring - young spring, a quiet breeze - a gentle breeze.

personification- transferring the signs of living beings to inanimate objects, nature: "The gloomy rocks looked sternly ...".

Comparison- direct comparison of one object, phenomenon with another. “The night is gloomy, like a beast ...” (Tyutchev).

Metaphor- transferring the meaning of one word, object, phenomenon to another. Similarity detection, implicit comparison.

“A fire of red mountain ash is burning in the garden ...” (Yesenin). The rowan brushes remind the poet of the flames of a fire.

Metonymy- renaming. Transfer of property, value from one object to another according to the principle of adjacency. “Which is in felt, let's bet” (Vysotsky). In felts (material) - in a felt hat.

Synecdoche is a kind of metonymy. Transferring the meaning of one word to another on the basis of a quantitative relationship: singular - plural, part - whole. “We all look at the Napoleons” (Pushkin).

Irony- the use of a word or expression in an inverted sense, mocking. For example, an appeal to the Donkey in Krylov’s fable: “From where, smart, are you wandering, head?”

Hyperbola- a figurative expression containing exorbitant exaggeration. It can relate to size, value, strength, other qualities. Litota, on the contrary, is an exorbitant understatement. Hyperbole is often used by writers, journalists, and litotes are much less common. Examples. Hyperbole: “In a hundred and forty suns the sunset burned” (V.V. Mayakovsky). Litota: "a man with a fingernail."

Allegory- a specific image, scene, image, object that visually represents an abstract idea. The role of the allegory is to point to the subtext, to force you to look for hidden meaning when reading. Widely used in fable.

Alogism- deliberate violation of logical connections for the purpose of irony. “That landowner was stupid, he read the Vesti newspaper and his body was soft, white and crumbly.” (Saltykov-Shchedrin). The author deliberately mixes logically heterogeneous concepts in the enumeration.

Grotesque- a special technique, a combination of hyperbole and metaphor, a fantastic surrealistic description. An outstanding master of the Russian grotesque was N. Gogol. On the use of this technique, his story "The Nose" is built. The combination of the absurd with the ordinary makes a special impression when reading this work.

Figures of speech

Stylistic figures are also used in literature. Their main types are displayed in the table:

Test "Means of artistic expression"

To test yourself on the assimilation of the material, take a short test.

Read the following passage:

“There, the war smelled of gasoline and soot, burnt iron and gunpowder, it gnashed its caterpillars, scribbled from machine guns and fell into the snow, and rose again under fire ...”

What means of artistic expression are used in an excerpt from the novel by K. Simonov?

Swede, Russian - stabs, cuts, cuts.

Drum beat, clicks, rattle,

The thunder of cannons, the clatter, the neighing, the groan,

And death and hell on all sides.

A. Pushkin

The answer to the test is given at the end of the article.

Expressive language is, first of all, an internal image that arises when reading a book, listening to an oral presentation, presentation. Image management requires pictorial techniques. There are enough of them in the great and mighty Russian. Use them, and the listener or reader will find their image in your speech pattern.

Study expressive language, its laws. Determine for yourself what is missing in your performances, in your drawing. Think, write, experiment, and your language will become an obedient tool and your weapon.

Answer to the test

K. Simonov. The personification of war in a passage. Metonymy: howling soldiers, equipment, battlefield - the author ideologically combines them into a generalized image of war. The used methods of expressive language are polyunion, syntactic repetition, parallelism. Through this combination of stylistic devices, when reading, a revived, rich image of the war is created.

A. Pushkin. There are no conjunctions in the first lines of the poem. In this way, the tension, the saturation of the battle is conveyed. In the phonetic pattern of the scene, the sound "p" in various combinations plays a special role. When reading, a roaring, growling background appears, ideologically conveying the noise of battle.

If answering the test, you could not give the correct answers, do not worry. Just re-read the article.