JEAN-PAUL CARTON Oral-Traditional Style in the de : 'Elaborate Style' and Mode of Composition

ROFESSOR JOSEPH J. DUGGAN's computer-aided investigation of P"formula" density in epic , the results of which were published in 1973 in his much debated book, The of Roland: Formulaic Style and Poetic Craft,1 was the first extensive quanti- tative application of the theory of oral composition developed by Milman Parry and Albert B. Lord2 to entire poems and is in many respects a major contribution to the field of ancient and medieval epic criticism. However, his conclusion that the Chanson de Roland, like the other de geste he studied, is an orally composed poem3 has not, by any means, brought general consensus among Old French scholars. One of the main points of criticism justly raised against Duggan's study is that his criteria for distinguishing between oral style and written style are not based on extensive observation of "formulaic" density in authentically oral and written texts.4 To date, indeed, relatively little has been done concerning

'Joseph J. Duggan, : Formulaic Style and Poetic Craft (Berkeley, Los Angeles; London: University of California Press, 1973). 2Milman Parry. "Studies in the Epic Technique of Oral Verse-Making: I. Homer and Homeric Style." Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 41 (1930), pp. 73-147; Albert B. Lord, The Singer of Tales (Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1960; reprint ed.. New York: Atheneum, 1974); idem, "Homer as Oral Poet." Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 72 (1968), pp. 1-46. For accounts of the Parry-Lord theory, particularly with regard to quantita- tive analysis, see. for example. Duggan, pp. 16-18; John S. Miletich, "The Quest for the 'Formula': A Comparative Reappraisal," Modern Philology, 74 (November 1976), pp. 111-123. See also Edward R. Haymes, A Bibliography of Studies Relating to Parry's and Lord's Oral Theory (Cambridge: Harvard University Printing Office, 1973) and review of the latter with additions by Samuel G. Armistead, MLN [Modern Language Notes], 90 (March 1975), pp. 296-299. John Miles Foley is now preparing for publication an updated bibliogra- phy on the oral theory. 3This, of course, does not include Buevon de Conmarchis, which is known to be a writ- ten composition and which Duggan classifies as a romance (see Duggan, p. 26).

3 4 / Vol 9, Nos. 1 & 2 / Fall & Winter 1981 the establishment of such criteria from the standpoint of "formula" analy- sis. Although oral-formulaic studies have greatly enhanced our under- standing of the art of poems such as the Roland, they appear to have failed to provide a satisfactory answer to the problem of their mode of composi- tion, and this essentially for two reasons: (1) they lack extensive statistical and descriptive data concerning oral material and deliberate imitations of oral texts to which the poems under investigation can be compared;5 (2) they have fallen short of applying a consistent method to various texts

4For a criticism of Duggan's criteria for the differentiation between oral and written styles in , see, for example, John S. Miletich, review of The Song of Roland: Formulaic Sty l e and Poetic Craft, by Joseph J. Duggan, Modern Philology, 73 (November 1975), pp. 180-181; idem, "The Quest." pp. 119-121, 122-123; idem, "Études formulaires et épopée européenne," in et l'épopée romane: Actes du VIIe Congrès Interna- tional de la Société Rencesvals, Liège, 28 août - 4 septembre 1976, Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres de l'Université de Liège, 225, Les Congrès et Colloques de l'Univer- sité de Liège, 76, 2 vols. (: Société d'Édition "Les Belles Lettres," 1978), Vol. 2, pp. 428-429; idem. "Stilističke razlike između usmene i pisane književnosti: savremeni metodolo- ški pristupi" ["The Stylistic Differentiation of Oral and Written Literature: Current Method- ologies"], in Naučni sastanak slavista u V ukove dane: referati i saopštenja, Beograd - Priština - Tršic, 13-19. IX 1976. (Beograd: MSC. 1977). 6/2, pp. 121-122 (I acknowledge the assistance of John S. Miletich for the information in Serbo-Croatian}; Rudy S. Spraycar, "La Chanson de Roland: An Oral Poem?" Olifant, 4 (October 1976), pp. 63-74. For a criticism of Spraycar's study, see John S, Miletich's comments in "1976 Annual Meeting of the Société Rencesvals, American-Canadian Branch: Proceedings." Olifant, 4 (March 1977), p. 171; William Calin. "Littérature médiévale et hypothèse orale: une divergence de méthode et de philosophie." Olifant, 8 (Spring 1981), pp. 278-279. 5A comparative formulary analysis of two entire poems, a twentieth-century oral poem from the Milman Parry Collection and a nineteenth-century poem written by Petar II Petro- vić Njegoš was completed by Edward R. Haymes, who concluded that his results do not allow us to distinguish clearly between "oral" and "written" material on the basis of "formula" den- sity. Haymes found that the oral text contained 34.8 percent "formula" and the written text as much as 29.6 percent: Edward R. Haymes, "Formulaic Density and Bishop Njegoš," Com- parative Literature, 32 (Fall 1980), pp. 390-401. Duggan himself recognizes that we know very little about the formulaic density of the Yugoslav poems, when he attempts to minimize the importance of Haymes's conclusion by saying that more analyses would be necessary in order for those results to acquire some significance with regard to a generalizing statement on for- mulaic content and mode of composition: Joseph J. Duggan, "Le Mode de composition des chansons de geste: Analyse statistique, jugement esthétique, modèles de transmission." Oli- fant, 8 (Spring 1981), pp. 289-290, n. 1. Other as yet unpublished formulary analyses of entire oral include Kenneth Goldman's doctoral dissertation (Albert B. Lord, "Perspectives on Recent Work on Oral Literature," Forum for Modern Language Studies, 10 [July 1974], p. 189) and David E. Bynum's recent work (in a paper delivered at the MLA session entitled "Yugoslav Oral Literature: Style, Structure, and Aesthetics" [San Francisco, 29 December 1979], Bynum announced that he had undertaken an extensive analysis of authentically oral material). Carton / Oral-Traditional Style in the Roland 5

belonging to different literary and linguistic traditions, thus making it dif- ficult to compare accurately the results which may be obtained for works such as the Yugoslav oral songs on one hand and the chansons de geste on the other.6 The validity of the criticism directed against Duggan's conclu- sion on the orality of the Chanson de Roland is further corroborated by my own application to the Old French text of another comparative and quan- titative method of stylistic analysis, which is based on the observation of significant differences in narrative mode between oral-traditional and written poetry. This method was developed by Professor John S. Miletich and does not deal with the "formula" but with the study of "elaborate style," i.e., a delay in the flow of the narrative line through the use of cer- tain kinds of repetitions.7 The results I have obtained show that the narra-

6On differences in "formula" analyses, see Miletich, "The Quest." pp. 114-120; Margaret Chaplin. "Oral-Formulaic Style in the Epic a progress report." in Medieval Hispanic Studies Presented to Rita Hamilton, ed. A. D. Deyermond (London: Tamesis. 1976), pp. 13-14; John Steven Geary, Formulaic Diction in the "Poema de Fernán González" and the "Mocedades de Rodrigo": A Computer-Aided Analysis, Studia Humanitatis (Potomac, Maryland: Porrúa, 1980). pp. 6-11. As suggested by John Miles Foley, it may be necessary to consider the defini- tion of the "formula" in view of the tradition in which it is used (John Miles Foley, "Beowulf and Traditional Narrative Song: The Potential and Limits of Comparison," in Old English Literature in Context: Ten Essays, ed. John D. Niles [Cambridge, England and Totowa, New Jersey: Boydell & Brewer, Rowman & Littlefield, 1980], pp. 117-122, 173-176), but, in doing so, one must be aware of the significance that a given modification may have w i t h regard to eventual comparisons with material in other languages and traditions (Miletich, "The Quest," p. 116). 7John S. Miletich. "Repetitive Sequences and their Effect on Narrative Style in Spanish and South Slavic Traditional Narrative Poetry" (also appearing in bibliographies as "The Romancero and the South Slavic Bugarštica: A Study of Repetitive Sequences and their Effect on Narrative Style"). (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1973); idem. "Narrative Style in Spanish and Slavic Traditional Narrative Poetry: Implications for the Study of the Romance Epic," Olifant, 2 (December 1974), pp. 109-128; idem, "The South Slavic Bugarštica and the Spanish Romance: A New Approach to Typology," International Journal of Slavic Linguistics and Poetics, 21 (1975), pp. 31-69; idem, "Medieval Spanish Epic and European Narrative Traditions." La Corónica, 6 (Spring 1978), pp. 90-96; idem, "Oral-Traditional Style and Learned Literature: A New Perspective," PTL: A Journal for Descriptive Poetics and Theory of Literature, 3 (April 1978), pp. 345-356; idem, "Elaborate Style in South Slavic Oral Narrative and in Kačić Miošić's Razgovor," in American Contributions to the Eighth International Congress of Slavists, Zagreb and Ljubljana, September 3-9, 1978, ed. Henrik Birnbaum 2 vols. (Columbus, Ohio: Slavica, 1978), Vol. 1, pp. 522-531; idem, "Shamanistic Features in Oral-Traditional Narrative," Language and Style, 11 (Fall 1978), pp. 223-225; idem. "South Slavic and Hispanic Versified Narrative: A Progress Report on One Approach," in The Hispanic Ballad Today: History, Comparativism, Critical Bibliography, eds. Samuel G. Armistead, Antonio Sánchez Romeralo, Diego Catalán, Romancero y poesía oral, no. 4 (Madrid: Cátedra Seminario Menéndez Pidal, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 1979), 6 Olifant / Vol 9, Nos. 1 & 2 / Fall & Winter 1981

tive style of the Roland differs considerably from that of oral-traditional or folk poetry and indicate that the poem is most likely not an orally com- posed text but a literary text which contains both written (or learned) as well as oral or folk stylistic elements. The various theories proposed thus far in order to account for the mode of composition of the in general and the Roland in particular, as the texts appear in extant manuscripts, offer a limited num- ber of alternatives. These, briefly stated, may be reduced to three positions, which are suggested by the long-standing traditionalist-individualist debate and Lord's work on oral narrative tradition:8 (1) the proponents of the traditionalist theory consider the poems to be direct products of an oral tradition, the latter existing either according to Ramón Menéndez Pidal's understanding of a memorized text circulating in variants or to the notion of oral composition developed by Parry and Lord; such texts may have been written down by a scribe under dictation, the "oral-dictated text," or by the poet himself, the "autograph oral text";9 (2) according to the indi-

pp. 131-135: idem. "Hispanic and South Slavic Traditional Narrative Poetry and Related Forms: A Survey of Comparative Studies (1824-1977)," in Oral Traditional Literature: A Fest- schrift for Albert Bates Lord, ed. John Miles Foley (Columbus, Ohio: Slavica, 1981), pp. 375-389: idem, "Oral Literature and 'Pučka Književnost'; Toward a Generic Description of Medieval Spanish and Other Narrative Traditions," in Folklore and Oral Communication, ed. Maja Bošković-Stulli (Zagreb: Zavod za istraživanje folklora, 1981), pp. 155-166; idem, review of Heroic Epic and : An Introduction to the World's Great Folk Epics, ed. Felix J. Oinas. Olifant, 7 (Spring 1980), pp. 300-302; idem, "Repetition and aesthetic function in the Poema de mio Cid and South-Slavic oral and literary epic," Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 58 (July 1981), pp. 189-196. Other briefer items in which Mitetich discusses his work appear as follows: "Dissertation Abstract," Olifant, 2 (December 1974), pp. 146-147 and Dissertation Abstracts International, Vol. 36, No. 12 (1975-76), p. 8104-A; "1974 Annual Meeting of the Société Rencesvals, American-Canadian Branch: Proceedings," Olifant, 2 (February 1975), pp. 164-166, 172-173; "Société Rencesvals Discussion Session on History. Narrative, and Dic- tion in the Late Castilian Epic: Trends in Contemporary Research, December 28, 1977." Oli- fant, 5 (March 1978), pp. 252-253, 262-265. 8For accounts of the traditionalist-individualist debate, see Martin de Riquer, Les Chansons de geste françaises, French trans. Irénée-Marcel Cluzel, 2nd ed. (Paris: Nizet, 1957), pp. 34-52; Ramón Menéndez Pidal, La Chanson de Roland et la tradition épique des Francs, French trans. Irénée-Marcel Cluzel, 2nd ed. (Paris: Picard. 1960), pp. 3-82; W. G. van Emden, '"La bataille est aduree endementres': Traditionalism and Individualism in Chanson-de- geste Studies," Nottingham Mediaeval Studies, 13 (1969), pp. 3-26; C. W. Aspland, A Syntac- tical Study of Epic Formulas and Formulaic Expressions Containing the -ant Forms in Twelfth Century French Verse (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1970), pp. 1-38; Duggan. pp. 1-6; Charles B. Faulhaber, "Neo-traditionalism, Formulism, Individualism, and Recent Studies on the Spanish Epic," Romance Philology, 30 (August 1976), pp. 83-101. For Lord's views, see Lord, The Singer, pp. 124-138. Carton / Oral-Traditional Style in the Roland 7

vidualist view, the chansons de geste were composed in writing by learned poets who made use of legendary material merely as a source of inspira- tion;10 (3) finally, another group of scholars favors a compromise between the two foregoing theories; according to them, the poems may be composi- tions which were written in the style of an oral-traditional poetry;11 for Lord, such deliberate imitations are the work of writers trained in a liter- ary tradition.12 To date, the method developed by Professor Miletich appears to be the only one providing both the comparative data and workable defini- tions lacking in oral-formulaic studies and required for a clear differentia- tion between "oral-traditional" and "written" styles in terms of the three positions described above. Miletich bases his distinction between "oral style" and "written style" on the relation between what he calls "elaborate style" and "essential style." According to his definition, "elaborate style" consists of repetitions involving a recurrence in idea which is unnecessary to the unfolding of the narrative line and thus delays, to some extent, the flow of narrative or descriptive information. These repetitions "contribute no fundamentally new dimension themselves as might be the case were synonyms with dif- ferent connotations used in their stead."13 Consequently, a repetition is considered to delay the flow of narrative information when it can be determined that the latter could have been relatively advanced by the addi- tion of a significant nuance or idea under the same textual conditions or constraints. An example is the repetition which occurs in the second hemi- stich of verse 157 in the Roland: "Bels fut li vespres e li soleilz fut cler" (The afternoon was beautiful and the sun was bright).14 In this verse, the

9Menéndez Pidal, pp. 51-82; Lord, The Singer, pp. 126-129. 10See, for example, Joseph Bédier, Les Légendes épiques: Recherches sur la formation des chansons de geste, 2nd ed., 4 vols. (Paris: Champion, 1914-21), especially Vol. 3, pp. 183-453, with regard to the Roland; idem. La Chanson de Roland commentée (Paris: Piazza, 1937), pp. 1-64; Maurice Delbouille, "Les Chansons de geste et le livre," in La Technique littéraire des chansons de geste: Actes du Colloque de Liège (septembre 1957), Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres de l'Université de Liège, 150 (Paris: Société d'Édition "Les Belles Lettres", 1959), pp. 295-428; Italo Siciliano, Les Chansons de geste et l'épopée: Mythes, Histoire, Poèmes (Turin: Società Editrice Internazionale, 1968). 11For accounts of the "conciliatory" point of view between traditionalists and individu- alists, see, for example, Duggan, pp. 3-4 and n. 7; Aspland. pp. 10-12, 17-19. 12Lord, The Singer, p. 133. 13Miletich, "Repetitive Sequences," p. 79. 8 Olifant / Vol 9, Nos. 1 & 2 / Fall & Winter 1981

repetition of the copula, estre, is not necessary for the unfolding of the nar- rative line, because, should the second instance be omitted, the narrative information supplied would remain the same. Moreover, this omission would also provide a metrical slot which could be filled with an intensifier such as mult, thus adding a nuance to the narrative line: "Bels fut li vespres e li soleilz mult cler" (The afternoon was beautiful and the sun was bright). According to Miletich, the narrative mode in the new hypothetical second hemistich would no longer be "elaborate", but "essential", i.e., characterized by narrative economy and necessity.15 This distinction between "elaborate style" and "essential style" stems from a comparative study of the Spanish romance and the South Slavic bugarštica, the purpose of which was to clarify the relationship between narrative style and definition of genre. In his early work, Miletich stressed that, from the standpoint of narrative style, the distinction between ballad and epic, for instance, remained unclear in spite of a considerable amount of research done on the subject. For example, Menéndez Pidal had estab- lished that traditional poetry in general and the romance in particular may be characterized on one hand by rapid style, i.e., a tendency to avoid what is seen as non-essential information, and on the other by repetitive diction, a feature he connected to the lyrical dimension of the romance, which, according to him. distinguished the latter from epic proper, like the chanson de geste. However, the Spanish scholar never accounted for the exact nature of the relationship between these two seemingly opposite tendencies.16 In an effort to provide a more accurate and systematic approach to the definition of genre characteristics as regards the romance and the bugarštica, Miletich undertook a study of types of closely occur- ring repetitions appearing in a given text and of their effect in the narra- tive style of the same text. He fixed the number of metrical units (e.g., hemistichs), within which a closely occurring repetition is to be found, at seven, a limit chosen because it seemed to encompass most of the repeti- tions in the texts under consideration and thus proved practical in gaug-

14 Raoul Mortier, ed., Les Textes de la Chanson de Roland, 10 vols. (Paris: Geste Fran- cor, 1940-44), Vol. 1: La Version d'Oxford. 15For discussions of the difference between "elaborate style" and "essential style," see, for example, Miletich, "Narrative Style," pp. 115-116; idem. "Repetitive Sequences." p. 99; Jean-Paul Carton, "Oral-Traditional Style and the Song of Roland: 'Elaborate Style' and 'Essential Style'" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Utah, 1982), pp. 48-60. 16Rimón Menéndez Pidal, Romancero hispánico (hispano-portugués, americano y sefardí): Teoría e historia, 2 vols, (Madrid: Espasa Calpe, S.A.. 1953), Vol. 1, pp.59-80; cited in Miletich, "The South Slavic Bugarštica," pp. 53-54, 67; idem, "Narrative Style," p. 116. Carton / Oral-Traditional Style in the Roland 9 ing different repetitive tendencies in different kinds of texts and similar tendencies in similar kinds of texts for the various meters studied so far.17 To these closely occurring repetitions, Miletich added the repetition of extended groups of hemistichs ("repetitive groups") which may occur suc- cessively anywhere in the same poem and are a significant element of nar- rative style, because, to a greater or lesser degree, they retard the flow of narrative or descriptive information. These groups are united by a com- mon idea and thus correspond to some extent to Lord's "themes."18 The classification of the repetitions thus observed by Miletich includes six types, which may be divided into two groups, "elaborate style" repetitions and "essential style" repetitions, according to whether or not they involve the unnecessary recurrence of an idea. Briefly stated, the categories of "elaborate style" repetitions in general terms are as follows: (1) repetitions of groups of hemistichs which, as mentioned above, are not closely occur- ring and correspond to some extent to Lord's "themes" (category Î: "repetitive group"); (2) closely occurring repetitions of entire hemistichs, lines or couplets in which the idea, diction, and syntax remain essentially unchanged (category II: "exact repetition"); (3) closely occurring repeti- tions in idea generally involving different diction and syntax (category III: "semantic repetition"); and (4) closely occurring repetitions which involve the same or similar diction but do not fill a metrical unit (category IV: "similar repetition"). "Essential style" repetitions are: (1) closely occurring repetitions which involve the same or similar diction but no unnecessary recurrence in idea (category V: "distinct repetition"); and (2) closely occur- ring repetitions of grammatical patterns (category VI: "syntactic repeti- tion").19 Miletich's preliminary studies of the foregoing repetitions, which he refers to as "repetitive sequences," showed that the rapid or "essential" style of the romance described by Menéndez Pidal was indeed accompanied, like that of the bugarštica, by a measurable opposite effect, i.e., "elaborate style," which appeared to be another important aspect of genre.20 Through further extensive analyses of the effect of repetitions in the style of both authentically oral poems and written imitations of oral

17See, for example, Miletich, "Narrative Style," p. 111. 18Miletich, "Narrative Style," pp. 111-113. 19Ibid., pp. 112-115. For examples of repetitions belonging to categories II through V in the Roland, see below, the notes on pp. 14-17 and corresponding material in text. 20Miletich, "Narrative Style," p. 116. 10 Olifant / Vol 9, Nos. 1 & 2 / Fall & Winter 1981 poetry, Miletich was also able to observe that the former displayed a higher instance of "elaborate" repetitions and, thus, he devised a method which could give a quantitative account of such tendencies. A ratio of the "elaborate style" to the "essential style" in a given narrative poem can be provided by calculating the number of metrical units which involve "elaborate style" repetitions and measuring it against those which contain "essential style" repetitions in addition to non-repetitive units, the "remainder," which together constitute "essential style."21 The results obtained by Miletich in analyses of short stichic poems at first and then of longer works have shown a consistent pattern. "Elaborate style" appears to be a distinctive feature of the traditional or folkloric material, either memorized and circulating in variants according to Menéndez Pidal's theory, or orally composed according to Lord's concept. The shorter texts examined in this category are composed both of authen- tically oral songs and of narrative poems of a more debatable authenticity which have been considered oral by a good number of scholars. Among the former are modern Judeo-Spanish romances of Morocco, modern Serbo- Croatian heroic songs, the earlier Serbo-Croatian songs from the classic Vuk Karadžić collection (volume II) and nineteenth-century Russian by- liny. The latter include sixteenth-century romances of the Wolf and Hof- mann collection and eighteenth-century bugarstice. In addition to this material, Miletich has also investigated "elaborate style" in a larger narra- tive poem, the orally composed epic, the Song of Bagdad, of which Lord has analyzed a fifteen-line sample.22 In all of these texts, "elaborate style" repetitions represent roughly an average of one-third of all metrical units considered and tend to be evenly distributed, the Song of Bagdad being slightly more "elaborate" than the average for all of the oral-traditional material studied thus far (37 percent). "Elaborate style" thus appears to constitute an essential element of the weave of oral-traditional narrative poetry and, indeed, analyses of poems known to have been composed in writing show that, although "elaborate" repetitions may be present in such texts, they are far from being so pervasive an element of style as in the case of the material discussed above. For example, the eighteenth-century poems of Andrija Kačić Miošić, a Franciscan monk, who, according to Lord, knew the oral epic of the South Slavs very well but composed his works in writing, show an average of 13 percent "elaborate style," the rep-

21 Miletich. "Medieval Spanish Epic." p. 91. 22Lord, The Singer, p. 46. Carton / Oral-Traditional Style in the Roland 11

etitions tending to be clustered in certain parts of the poems.23 An analysis of a "written" poem by Lorca displays 5.4 percent "elaborate style."24 In an application of the method to medieval Spanish , Miletich found that the entire and the entire Mocedades de Rodrigo yield only 17 and 19 percent "elaborate style," respectively, and that the repetitions do not tend to be evenly distributed throughout the texts. The Cid and the Mocedades thus appear to be closer to Kačić Miošić's work, both in the percentages and the distribution of their "elaborate style" repetitions. On the basis of the foregoing evidence, Mile- tich concludes that these poems correspond to a genre which Slavic schol- ars refer to as pučka književnost, i.e., a kind of literature using elements belonging to both oral tradition and learned tradition. This category, which displays an average of about 16 percent "elaborate style" and a spo- radic distribution of the repetitions,25 therefore pertains to the texts described in section (3) of the classification presented in the second para- graph of the present article. To be noted here is that Miletich's conclusion is corroborated by Alan D. Deyermond's generally accepted (at least by American hispano-medievalists) theory regarding the learned authorship of the Mocedades.26 Although more work is being done by Miletich on quantitative analysis of "elaborate style" in narrative poems, on the basis of the forego- ing results, his method already appears to provide an adequate tool for testing the orality or the of ancient and medieval narrative poetry. In contrast to formulaic studies in general and Duggan's work in particu- lar, Miletich's differentiation between oral style and written style in narra- tive poetry rests on extensive evidence and a posteriori reasoning. As already stated, formulaic studies to date have not produced extensive data which may enable scholars of narrative poetry to distinguish clearly between oral and written styles.27 This is perhaps the single main flaw of Parry-Lord studies and their application to medieval epic poetry as a tool

23Miletich, "Medieval Spanish Epic," pp. 91-93. 24Miletich, "Stilističke razlike," p. 126; I acknowledge the assistance of John S. Miletich for the information in Serbo-Croatian. 25Miletich. "Medieval Spanish Epic," pp. 92-93. 26Alan [D.] Deyermond, "The Mocedades de Rodrigo as a Test Case: Problems of Methodology," La Corónica, 6 (Spring 1978), pp. 108, 111 and n. 2. 27See above, note 5. 12 Olifant / Vol. 9, Nos. 1 & 2 / Fall & Winter 1981 for the investigation of the orality or literacy of extant texts. Miletich, on the other hand, developed his criteria from a statistical and descriptive examination of some 15,000 verse lines of authentically oral and written texts as well as written imitations of oral style in two basically different language families, the Romance and the Slavic, comprising Spanish, Serbo-Croatian, and Russian-language material.28 Furthermore, these data have been obtained in an application of the method to both oral and written texts in different literary and linguistic traditions, so that the assessment of the mode of composition of a given problematic text does not rest solely on analogy but also on observations made in each of the main language traditions examined by Miletich, namely Spanish and Serbo-Croatian.29 Therefore, although the Old French epic cannot be compared directly to an authentic French oral heroic tradition because of the lack of such primary material in French, the application of this method to poems like the Chanson de Roland is validated by the fact that Miletich's studies show that the observed phenomena (density and distri- bution of "elaborate style") do not depend on a particular linguistic group but appear consistent in the investigation of the two basically distinct lan- guage families studied so far. Finally, another point of importance which must also be mentioned here is that, also in contrast to the Parry-Lord theory, the distinction between oral style and written style does not rest on an assumption, namely that a higher percentage of a particular kind of repetition is an intrinsic element of oral style.30 Although Miletich has addressed the problem of the origin of the repetitions he studies,31 the sta- tistical method itself and the classification criteria as they stand to date are not concerned with or based upon an examination of why the categories of "elaborate style" repetitions occur in greater quantity and more evenly in an oral narrative poem than they do in a written poem but merely point out, on the basis of extensive observations, that such is the case.

From the standpoint of the percentage and distribution of "elaborate

28Miletich, "Repetition and aesthetic function," p. 189. 29Miletich, "Medieval Spanish Epic," p. 93. 30For questions raised c o n c e r n i n g the relationship between the "formula" and oral composition, see Delbouille, pp. 343, 362; Larry D. Benson, "The Literary of Anglo-Saxon Formulaic Poetry," PMLA [Publications of the Modern Language Associa- tion], 81 (October 1966), pp. 334-341. 31 Miletich, "Medieval Spanish Epic," p. 92 and n. 11; idem, "Shamanistic Features," pp. 223-225. Carton / Oral-Traditional Style in the Roland 13 style" repetitions, the narrative style of the Raoul Mortier edition of the Oxford version of the Chanson de Roland32 resembles that of comparable texts classified by Miletich as pučka književnost. Here, I would like to emphasize that great care was devoted to making the figures proposed in the present study directly comparable to those obtained by Miletich for the Spanish, Serbo-Croatian, and Russian texts he investigated. No adjust- ment which might constitute a breach of the method was made, and much of the data was reconsidered in the light of Miletich's recommendations in order to ensure that the application be consistent in all respects. That the Oxford manuscript is employed for such a study is only fit- ting because Roland scholarship has consistently turned to this version, the oldest Old French epic text, for problems dealing with the origins and the nature of the poem in particular and the chansons de geste in general. The choice of the Mortier edition is determined by Duggan's use of that text. It not only made Duggan's very helpful concordance of the poem more immediately accessible to me,33 but will also validate any future comparison with his results. This factor is of some importance because the principal problem addressed in the present study has its point of departure in Duggan's work. As for Mortier's "errors," I also used Cesare Segre's crit- ical edition and John Robin Allen's unpublished corrections of the Mor- tier text in order to ensure that they would not significantly alter the results of my study. In fact, these corrections do not affect the analysis of "repetitive sequences" in the text used by Duggan.34 The Roland may be compared directly with the longer texts studied by Miletich, namely the Cantar de Mio Cid, the Mocedades de Rodrigo and the authentically oral epic, the Song of Bagdad. I have determined its "elaborate style" content to be 20.48 percent, a figure significantly lower than the one arrived at by Miletich for the oral poem (37 percent) but close to the "elaborate style" content of the two medieval Spanish texts, the Cid (17 percent) and the Mocedades (19 percent), which, as mentioned earlier, are classified as pučka književnost. Moreover, also like the Cid and the Mocedades, but unlike the oral-traditional poems analyzed by Miletich

32See above, note 14. 33Joseph J. Duggan, A Concordance of the "Chanson de Roland" (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1969). 34Cesare Segre, ed., La Chanson de Roland (Milano, Napoli: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1971); John R. Allen, "On the Mortier Edition of the Chanson de Roland." I am indebted to Pro- fessor Allen for providing me with a copy of this manuscript. 14 Olifant / Vol. 9, Nos. 1 & 2 / Fall & Winter 1981

(both the longer and the shorter ones), the Roland displays an irregular distribution of its "elaborate style" repetitions.35 The latter are clustered in certain or scenes and are absent or almost absent from others. In order to illustrate this sporadic character of the distribution of the repeti- tions in the Old French poem, I have selected a passage which clearly shows different tendencies, laisses LIX through LXVIII, i.e., 109 verses which begin with Roland's reaction to his nomination as the leader of the rear guard by . In this passage, I have marked all instances of "elaborate style" repetitions, placing the first occurrence of repetitive ele- ments into parentheses and putting the recurrence(s) into italics. "Essential style" repetitions are left unmarked. LIX Li quens Rollant, quant il s'oït (juger), AOI. Dunc ad parled a lei de chevaler: «Sire parastre, mult vos dei aveir cher: La rereguarde avez sur mei jugiet.36 755 (N'i perdrat Carles), li reis ki tient, Men escientre palefreid ne destrer, Ne mul ne mule que deiet chevalcher, Ne n'i perdrat37 ne runcin ne sumer, Que as espees ne seit einz eslegiet.» 760 Guenes respunt: «Veir dites, jol sai bien.» AOI. LX Quant ot Rollant qu'il en en la rereguarde, Ireement parlat a sun parastre: «Ahi! culvert, malvais hom de put aire. Quidás le guant me caïst en la place, 765 Cume fist a tei le bastun devant Carle?» AOI.

35For the complete data, see Carton, pp. 166-187; ibid., pp. 151-156 for a statistical summary. 36Category IV: "similar repetition" (recurrence of identical or similar words shorter than the metrical unit). 37Category II: "exact repetition" (recurrence of at least one entire metrical unit). To be noted is that "exact repetition" does not necessarily mean verbatim repetition. Variation may occur as long as the idea contained in the units matched remains basically the same and is expressed through essentially the same diction. Such variation often involves, for example, less semantically weighted elements and morphological changes but may sometimes also consist of the omission of a main word as is the case in the "repetitive sequence" of vv. 755-758: the word Carles, which appears in the first hemistich of v. 755, does not recur in the first hemistich of v. 758 and the syllable left vacant by this omission is filled by a less semanti- cally weighted element, the coordinating conjunction ne, in such a way that both hemistichs in their entirety express the same idea, i.e., "Charles will not lose." For a discussion of varia- tion in category II, see Carton, pp. 115-120. Carton / Oral-Traditional Style in the Roland 15 LXI — «Dreiz emperere.» dist Rollant le barun, «Dunez mei l'arc que vos tenez el poign. Men escientre nel me reproverunt Que il me chedet, cum fist a Guenelun

770 De sa main desire, quant reçut le bastun.» Li empereres en tint sun chef enbrunc, Si duist sa barbe e detoerst sun gernun; Ne poet muer que des oilz ne plurt. LXII Anpres iço i est Neimes venud: 775 Meillor vassal n'out en la curt de lui; E dist al rei: «Ben l'avez entendut; (Li quens Rollant), il38 est mult irascut. La rereguarde est jugée sur lui: N'avez baron ki jamais la remut. 780 (Dunez li) l'arc que vos avez tendut, Si li truvez ki tres bien li aiut!» Li reis li dunet, e (Rollant) l'a reçut. LXIII Li empereres apelet (ses nies) Rollant: «Bel sire nies, or savez veirement. 785 Demi mun host vos lerrai en present. Retenez les, ço est vostre salvement.» Ço dit li quens: («Jo n'en ferai nient; De us me cunfunde, se la geste en desment! .XX. milie Francs retendrai ben vaillanz. 790 Passez les porz trestut soürement: Ja mar crendrez nul hume a mun vivant!») LXIV (Li quens) Rollant est muntet el destrer. AOI. Cuntre lui (vient) sis cumpainz ; Vint (i) Gerins e li proz quens Gerers, 795 (E) vint i Otes, si i vint Berengers E vint i Astors e Anseïs li veillz; Vint i Gerart de Rossillon li fiers; Venuz i est li riches dux Gaifiers. (Dist) l'arcevesque: «(Jo) irai par mun chef!» 800 — («E jo od vos,») ço dist (li quens) (Gualters);

38Category III: "semantic repetition" (recurrence of an idea through different diction). Here, the repetition consists of the pleonastic use of the subject pronoun il, which repeats Li quens Rollant. Other similar instances of pronouns used pleonastically occur in v. 787. where ço anticipates Roland's words (vv. 787 [second hemistich]-791), and vv. 800 (ço) and 845 (en). 16 Olifant / Vol.9, Nos. 1 & 2 / Fall & Winter 1981

«Hom sui (Rollant), jo39 ne li dei faillir.» Entr'els eslisent .XX. milie chevalers. AOI. LXV Li quens Rollant Gualter40 de l'Húm apelet: «Pernez mil (Francs) de France,41 nostre tere, 805 Si purpernez les deserz e les tertres, Que l'emperere nis un des soens n'i perdet.» AOI.. Respunt (Gualter): «Pur vos le dei ben faire.» Od mil (Franceis) de France, la tere, Gualter desrenget les destreiz e les tertres: 810 N'en descendrat pur malvaises nuveles, Enceis qu'en seient .VII. C. espees traites. Reis Almaris, del regne de Belferne, Une bataille lur livrat (le jur) pesme. LXVI Halt sunt li pui e li val tenebrus, 815 Les roches bises, les destreiz merveillus. Le jur passerent Franceis a grant dulur; De .XV. lius en ot hom la rimur. Puis que il venent a la Tere Majur, Virent Guascuigne, la tere lur seignur, 820 Dune le remembret des fius e des honurs,

39Category IV: according to Miletich, the repetition of less semantically weighted ele- ments such as function words may also be "elaborate" if it can be determined that an adequate new idea or nuance could have been used in its place. In v. 801, the pronoun jo could have been replaced by a short adverb such as ja or or. 40V. 803 contains three repetitions of words which occur first in the second hemistich of v. 800 and the first hemistich of v. 801, li quens, Rollant and Gualter. The repetitions of li quens and Rollant are "elaborate" (category IV) because the hemistich in which they appear may be replaced in its entirely by Li nies Carlun (li nies replacing li quens and Carlun replac- ing Rollant), which could thus present Roland in a different light. On the other hand, in the second hemistich of v. 803, the repetition of Gautier's name is "essential" (category V: "distinct repetition") because the language of the text does not provide an expression which could have fulfilled the same function. This repetition is necessary for contextual identifica- tion. 41Category IV: it must be noted, however, that my decision to classify this repetition as "elaborate" is contrary to the opinion of Lucien Foulet, who sees in the expression Franc de France a possible opposition between the general sense of Franc, meaning someone from anywhere in the whole empire and the restrictive sense of France, meaning France proper: "il faut bien que l'expression Francs de France exclue les Francs qui ne sont pas de France" (Lucien Foulet, Glossary of the Oxford Version of the Chanson de Roland, in Bédier, La Chanson de Roland commentée, p. 511, col. 2). However, Foulet does not give any indication as to the repetition of v. 1593, D'Affrike i ad un African venut, or that of v. 3038, Alemans sunt e si sunt d'Alemaigne, both of which are more clearly pleonastic. Because no definite answer can be provided for the repetitions of vv. 804 and 808, I classified them as "elaborate" as a precaution against an underestimation of "elaborate style." Carton / Oral-Traditional Style in the Roland 17

E des pulcele e des gentilz oixurs: (Cel nen i ad ki de pitet ne plurt. Sur tuz les altres est Carles anguissus:) As porz (d'Espaigne) ad lesset sun nevold, 825 Pitet l'en prent, ne poet muer n'en plurt.42 AOI. LXVII Li .XII. per sunt remes en Espaigne. .XX. milie Francs unt en lur cumpaigne, N'en unt poür ne de murir dutance. Li emperere s'en repairet en France; 830 Suz sun mantel en fait la cuntenance. Dejuste lui li dux Neimes chevalchet E dit al rei: «De quei avez pesance?» Carles respunt: «Tort fait kil me demandet! Si grant doel ai ne puis muer nel pleigne. 835 Par Guenelun serat destruite France: Enoit m'avint un avisiun d'angele, Que entre mes puinz me depeçout ma hanste, Chi ad juget mis nes a rereguarde. (Jo) l'ai lesset en une estrange marche! 840 Deus! se jol pert, ja n'en avrai escange!» AOI. LXVIII Carles li magnes ne poet muer n'en plurt. .C. milie Francs pur lui unt (grant) tendrur, E de Rollant merveilluse poür, Guenes li fels en ad fait traïsun: 845 (Del rei paien) en ad oüd granz duns, Or e argent, palies e ciclatuns, Muls e chevals e cameilz e leuns. Marsilies mandet d'Espaigne les baruns, Cuntes, vezcuntes e dux e almaçurs, 850 Les amirafles e les filz as cunturs: .IIII. C. milie en ajustet en .III. jurz. En Sarraguce fait suner ses taburs; Mahumet levent en la plus halte tur. N'i ad paien nel prit e nel aort. 855 Puis si chevalchent, par mult grant cuntençun, La Tere Certeine e les vals e les munz: De cels de France virent les gunfanuns. La rereguarde des .XII. cumpaignuns Ne lesserat bataille ne lur dunt.

The "elaborate style" content of this passage is approximately 11.93 per-

42Category III: "semantic repetition" (v. 825 is "elaborate" because of vv. 822-823, which already show Charlemagne as one among those who are weeping). 18 Olifant / Vol 9, Nos. 1 & 2 / F a l l & Winter 1981

cent (26 "elaborate" hemistichs / 218 hemistichs), a figure which is signifi- cantly lower than the average for the entire poem (20.48 percent) and slightly below the figure of 13 percent found by Miletich in Kačić Miošić's written compositions (shorter poems classified under pučka književ- nost).43 As emphasized by the italics, "elaborate style" repetitions appear quite unevenly. Half of the 26 repetitive units are clustered in two laisses, laisses LXIV (9 hemistichs) and LXV (4 hemistichs). Two of the remain- ing laisses, laisses LX and LXI, contain no "elaborate style" repetitions, and elsewhere the repetitions are either isolated (e.g., v. 840) or grouped in small clusters (e.g., vv. 782-784). This ten- excerpt is not unique, but rather characteristic of the style of the Roland. For example, "repetitive groups" (category I), the category of extended repetitions which are not closely occurring and correspond more or less to Lord's "themes," are especially concentrated in laisses parallèles such as those describing boasts or single combat scenes, as well as in laisses similaires. Moreover, although the average percentage of "elaborate style" may in certain pas- sages resemble figures obtained in the analysis of oral-traditional material, elsewhere, in other sections of comparable length, it is in fact quite low. For example, verses 1188 to 1296, a passage of 109 verses involving a series of laisses parallèles and taken from the first encounter between Charle- magne's rear guard and the , contain approximately 41.76 percent "elaborate style," including 26 percent category-I repetitions. These fig- ures are comparable to the 37 percent "elaborate style" and the relatively high percentage of category-I repetition found by Miletich in the analysis of the oral Yugoslav epic, the Song of Bagdad.44 On the other hand, the last 111 verses of the Roland (vv. 3892-4002) display only about 6.31 per- cent "elaborate style" and do not include a single "repetitive group."45 Although my analysis of "elaborate style" in the Chanson de Roland argues that the Oxford version of the poem is not an oral-traditional text but rather, in all probability, a learned text composed in writing, I must stress that this conclusion, which supports the position adopted by schol- ars who favor a compromise between individualist and traditionalist theo- ries, does not inform us about the origins of the poem, but rather solely about its composition. The results I have obtained suggest a pre-existing oral tradition, such as the one the historical traditionalists have tried to

43See above, note 23. 44Miletich, "Medieval Spanish Epic," p. 92. 45For "elaborate style" in vv. 1188-1296 and 3892-4002, see Carton, p. 162, n. 14. Carton / Oral-Traditional Style in the Roland 19 reconstruct, but reveal little of its nature and do not even indicate that the learned poet had direct contact with it. They merely point out the extent to which Turoldus (?) has made use of certain oral-traditional stylistic devices which, insofar as we know, may have been transmitted to him either orally or in writing.46 JEAN-PAUL CARTON Georgia Southern College, Statesboro

46I wish to express my gratitude to Edward A. Heinemann and John S. Miletich for their helpful assistance in the preparation of the final draft of the present article.