The Subject of Violence
The Song of Roland and the Birth of the State
Published on 22. August 1993
Book
Hardback
272 pages
978-0-253-30548-0 (ISBN)
Description
"This book provides the reader with a new, challenging, and sophisticated critical analysis of the Song of Roland." -Choice
"[Haidu's] close reading of the Song of Roland is interesting, informative, and significant . . . " -American Historical Review
"Probably the most sophisticated book ever written on the Song of Roland. . . . It is at once a work of linguistic analysis, of literary theory, of literary history, and, finally, of history." -R. Howard Bloch
Haidu argues that the 12th-century Song of Roland played an essential role in the creation of the nation-state, in that the narrative transforms the independent and violent warriors of the feudal period into the subordinate instruments of the nation-state by enforcing on them the subjection to the rule of monarchy.
"[Haidu's] close reading of the Song of Roland is interesting, informative, and significant . . . " -American Historical Review
"Probably the most sophisticated book ever written on the Song of Roland. . . . It is at once a work of linguistic analysis, of literary theory, of literary history, and, finally, of history." -R. Howard Bloch
Haidu argues that the 12th-century Song of Roland played an essential role in the creation of the nation-state, in that the narrative transforms the independent and violent warriors of the feudal period into the subordinate instruments of the nation-state by enforcing on them the subjection to the rule of monarchy.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Bloomington, IN
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paper over boards
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 156 mm
Weight
626 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-253-30548-0 (9780253305480)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
PETER HAIDU is Professor of French at UCLA.
Content
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Violence: Modern Perspectives on the Medieval and the Modern
1. The Semiotization of Death: Open Text or Closed?
2. THe Gaze of the Other
The Sociological Presentation of the Self
The Intertextuality of the Peerage
3. Excursus I: Aesthetics, Economics, Politics
Beauty, Value, Violence
The Noble, the Knight, the Peasant
The Ideology of Knighthood
4. The Subsystem of the Professional Warrior: Courage, Contradiction, Irascibility
Ideological Value (I): The Constitution and Destitution of Subjects
Ideological Value (II): From Subject to Traitor?
Structure of Structures
5. The Destinator's Multiple Roles: Syncretism or Contradiction?
The Culpable Guarantor
From Individual to Role
6. Excursus II: The Play of Absence and Presence in Medieval Kingship
Carles li reis,...
...nostre emperere magnes
Reis and Emperere Textualized
7. Funerary Rituals
The Unreintegrated Mourner
The Death of Aude, or the Refusal of Exchange
The Transformative Performance
8. Textual Coherence and the Dialectics of Ideology
Textual Coherence: The Narrative
Narrative Programs
Actants
9. Ganelon's Trial, or the Monarch's Revolution
The Actorial Level: Inexorable Structure
The Actantial Distribution
10. Conclusion
The Chanson Ends with the Indeterminacy of Non-Exclusive Disjunction
The Chanson Produces Limited and Specifiable Significations
The Subject of Violence
Nomadic Violence, Sedentary Economics, and the Birth of the State
Notes
Bibliography
General Index
Index of Proper Nouns
Index of Foreign Terms and Phrases
Introduction
Violence: Modern Perspectives on the Medieval and the Modern
1. The Semiotization of Death: Open Text or Closed?
2. THe Gaze of the Other
The Sociological Presentation of the Self
The Intertextuality of the Peerage
3. Excursus I: Aesthetics, Economics, Politics
Beauty, Value, Violence
The Noble, the Knight, the Peasant
The Ideology of Knighthood
4. The Subsystem of the Professional Warrior: Courage, Contradiction, Irascibility
Ideological Value (I): The Constitution and Destitution of Subjects
Ideological Value (II): From Subject to Traitor?
Structure of Structures
5. The Destinator's Multiple Roles: Syncretism or Contradiction?
The Culpable Guarantor
From Individual to Role
6. Excursus II: The Play of Absence and Presence in Medieval Kingship
Carles li reis,...
...nostre emperere magnes
Reis and Emperere Textualized
7. Funerary Rituals
The Unreintegrated Mourner
The Death of Aude, or the Refusal of Exchange
The Transformative Performance
8. Textual Coherence and the Dialectics of Ideology
Textual Coherence: The Narrative
Narrative Programs
Actants
9. Ganelon's Trial, or the Monarch's Revolution
The Actorial Level: Inexorable Structure
The Actantial Distribution
10. Conclusion
The Chanson Ends with the Indeterminacy of Non-Exclusive Disjunction
The Chanson Produces Limited and Specifiable Significations
The Subject of Violence
Nomadic Violence, Sedentary Economics, and the Birth of the State
Notes
Bibliography
General Index
Index of Proper Nouns
Index of Foreign Terms and Phrases