Ut pictura poesis: le cas de La Chanson de Roland

摘要

For a long time, students of the Chanson de Roland—G. Paris, G. Lanson, E. Faral, P. Le Gentil, G. Moignet, to name a few—have indicated that the work is highly visual, and that the reader has the impression of seeing the actions being described. In other words, the Chanson is an excellent example of the figure of speech classical rhetoricians call hypotyposis, a lively description used for creating the illusion of reality. Unfortunately the aforementioned scholars have not explained which stylistic devices produce such an effect in the Chanson (and neither have the rhetoricians who defined the trope). The goal of this article is to take stock of these various means: concrete vocabulary, neutral narration, paratactic construction, use of the present tense, montage etc., all of which contribute to rendering this composition highly visual. The analysis makes use of data produced by cognitive psychologists who study contexts in which verbal information lends itself to visualization. An unexpected consequence of the analysis of the Chanson de Roland from this perspective is the revelation of its stylistic ‘modernity’, since scholars associate the birth of the ‘modern novel’, in the 19th century, with the generalization of such techniques.