The Hero of Great Deeds: From Albanian Songs of the Frontier Warriors to French Chansons de Geste
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7596/taksad.v8i1.1761Keywords:
Hero, Epic songs, Frontier Warriors, Chansons de geste, Identity.Abstract
The hero of the Albanian Frontier Warriors’ Songs is a hero of the great deeds such as the one in the French Chansons de geste, which is a source of inspiration for the notion of deeds / gestures. However, the heroic effect of the deeds differs from the cultural and identity extent, from the genre, the legendary and historical context. Muji and Halili are epic heroes of Albanian Frontier Warriors songs. They act independently or in accordance with other epic heroes, which usually are thirty. Their heroic acts vary from the French epic heroes. They differ even from Roland, because they are primarily motivated by the protection of individuals' possessions and lives and as heroic, epic and erotic adventures, fights of honour, pride, and local identity. Contrary to them, Roland gets more of the size of the community hero, distinguished by protecting cultural and identity norms of a broader character as well as doctrinal. This paper intends to develop a comparative analysis of Albanian Frontier Warriors’ Songs and French Chansons de geste, above all between the songs of the legendary discourse in Albanian early epic literature and the Roland’s song. The aim is to create a perspective between these two heroisms of Albanian and French oral epic, without denying the influence of the song and its hero on creating identity lines.
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