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The texts included in RolandHT cover a wide range of European cultures - France, Italy, Norway, Wales, Germany - and span about nine centuries of literary production. I chose to use them because I believe they represent a good cross-section of the intercultural perceptions of Roland's character. The perspectives on the character manifest in these texts are sometimes startlingly contrasting, and at other times similar to each other. In both cases, they make evident the peculiarities of treating the same literary material in different cultural and temporal contexts. The mixing and the juxtaposition of these texts will hopefully highlight for the modern reader both the similarities and the differences in treatments of Roland.

The texts are not meant to be structured in any hierarchical order. Disassociating the composite Roland from any specific text is the aim, and no text where he figures as a protagonist is any more or less important to RolandHT than any other text.

On the other hand, there is a definite center to the Roland canon: most of the extant works in it have as their source, primary or otherwise, the French poem. This is why, on the Sitemap (the only place where any kind of hierarchy may be perceived, out of necessity rather than by choice), the Song of Roland is listed first. After it, the most thematically close to it works are listed, in alphabetical order: Cân Rolant and Priest Konrad's Song of Roland. Karlamagnus Saga, which is thematically close but covers much more plot material relating to Charlemagne, follows. The Italian corpus, being the largest group of works from any one country, is listed last. It is in chronological order - except for the Inferno, which, being a secondary text, comes last.

RolandHT is a work by Vika Zafrin. The texts quoted, where not in public domain, are under their respective authors' or translators' copyright and have been included here with permission.




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