SOURCE: Haidu, Peter. “Funerary Rituals in the Chanson de Roland.” In Continuations: Essays on Medieval French Literature and Language: In Honor of John L. Grigsby, edited by Norris J. Lacy and Gloria Torrini-Roblin, pp. 187-202. Birmingham: Summa Publications, Inc., 1989.

In the following essay, Haidu explores how Charles breaks with tradition in his reaction to Roland's death.

The Baligant episode interrupts, in its various segments, narrative developments whose coherence is defined by a common theme: not only do they come after Roland's death, these narrative syntagms are concerned with problems posed by that death. Death is a problem for the living, as is well known, not the dead. Anthropologically speaking, the crucial problem is the reintegration of the members of the social group into its unity after the disappearance of one of its crucial members. Vis-à-vis the fact of death, the social group performs its rituals, the means...