Roland And Beowulf Comparison

In The Song of Roland, we are met with our hero in the form of, you may have guessed, a strong and showy man named Roland, a skilled and bold warrior bent upon the success of the great Spanish campaign. One of the twelve peers of France and the Favourite nephew of the great Charlemagne, Roland is a perfect example of the ‘tragic hero’, which Aristotle defines as “a literary character who makes a judgment error that inevitably leads to his/her own destruction” (Webster’s Dictionary), this is demonstrated in the events leading up to his death at the Saracens the ambush at Roncesvals after his boastful attitude towards his success in the past incur the wrath of his step father Ganleon. While the idea of the ‘tragic hero’ is not new at this point,

Like Beowulf, Roland is a great and well-known warrior, known for his strength, courage and his exemplary behavior for a night in terms of devotion and loyalty to his lord and The Lord, as well as his manners. Both Beowulf and Roland are all of these things; they both also meet their ends in similarly negative and somewhat rash ways. Though both are celebrated as great heroes, their final decisions lead to their deaths as well as the deaths of tens of thousands of their fellow warriors. Roland’s pride preventing him from blowing the Oliphant, much like Beowulf’s attack leaving his people without a King, both show a lack of willingness to ask for help or stand down in the face of certain death even if it would be what is best for those around them. Despite this though, both men are examples of the heroic code of the time and were primary examples of the societies that created them. For example, Roland states in his speech prior to the battle that kills him he

As the battles become larger and they were waged over so much more, in fighting for God they open themselves up for more epic stories and battles than in works like The battle of Maldon and The Saga Of The Völsungs, where heroes predominantly fought with their family or neighbors and over small amounts of land. This switch to such a religious focused hero makes family and your connections to those around you so much more important. The invocation of the importance of following the Ten Commandments makes following past heroes like Cu Chulaind, Sigurd and men like The Earl in Maldon, not applicable to be heroes since they broke commandments like though shalt not murder, covet, commit adultery, steal or honor your father and your mother- there is also the slight issue of witchcraft when it comes to Cu Chulaind but that is a whole other kettle of fish. Regardless Roland ushers in the beginnings of a moral and righteous hero defending their God from the infidels and sinners. These heroes sent men into battle to defend what was right and brought warring families together on the same side- that of God and against the Muslims, Saracens, Franks and whomever else seeks to devalue their faith or insist that there is any God but their own, true God. The perfect nature of Roland’s fealty to his God and his absolute faith in