The main summary for the “The Song of Roland” poem was to discourage Islam from starting any more crusades, it was a poem of peace. It was highly popular during the Middle ages and was loved by many. This story was about Roland, and his friend Oliver where Roland was at the right hand of Charlemagne of France and Oliver was a part of Charlemagne’s army, the Franks. This story is centered around some battles between the Muslims, filled with betrayal, sadness, and victories from both sides where death was the result of bad decisions. Now, though these poems are based on a true story, much of the material in them is highly exaggerated; the majority of the brutal details false.
Someone who is especially learned in poetry, he or she will most likely find it easy to catch several things in a poem including the lack of similarity between both accounts of the poem and the real thing. It’s a given that the reader should know more about what really happened as well or else they would only have one side of the story.
However if it is a typical listener listening to the poem, I do not think they would be able to tell the discrepancies between the two accounts.
RPC: Western Literature 