Boromir, a noble knight, turns traitor on the bearer of the One Ring, Frodo, and tries to seize the power for himself. They just lost their leader, the wizard Gandalf, and they are left with little hope on how to move forward. The False Horn The Two Towers (George Allen & Unwin)Īt the conclusion of The Fellowship of the Rings, the Fellowship is at a low point. The Two Towers begins with a grotesque parody of The Song of Roland. It is a warrior’s defiance against death itself, and it is the essence of the Christian knightly ideal. Roland’s final sounding of the horn announces to his liege lord that he served until his very last. The blowing of the horn is a combination of dedication to duty, a willingness to sacrifice one’s self for something greater, and a noble defiance against an overwhelming enemy. When all of his men lay dead and he alone is alive to continue, he blows the horn once more to signal that his fight has come to an end. Relying on a combination of courage and duty, the battle quickly turns into a last stand, and Roland takes his toll on the enemy forces. When he first blows the horn, Roland knows that the Frankish army is too far off to come to their aid, but he refuses to give up. However, it is clear that the Frankish army is heavily outnumbered and could never prevail, and he is urged to sound the horn. ![]() Too soon would be a sign of cowardice, but too late would spell doom for the Franks. Roland bravely leads the forces of the Franks, but there is a dispute over when he should blow into his mighty olifant (elephant) horn to alert Charlemagne. Using this information, the Saracens cut off the Frankish army, and a great battle took place. This prompted the surrender of the King Marsile, ruler of the Saracens, and Charlemagne was willing to accept it.Īs Charlemagne’s army returned to France, Ganelon, a traitor within the French command, revealed to King Marsile how the Saracen army could ambush the rear guard of the Franks. Years before the battle, Charlemagne led his Frankish army into Spain to free it from the Muslim conquest, and his forces were able to defeat all opposition. The eponymous hero, Roland, is a great knight who serves his uncle Charlemagne, King of the Franks, faithfully. The Song of Roland is a French heroic poem that describes a great battle of the Saracen (Muslim) army and the Frankish (French) knights. ![]() The Song of Roland 8 phases of The Song of Roland (Wikimedia Commons) Derived from The Song of Roland, he begins and ends the first half of Two Towers with a recreation of Roland’s last stand. Of these images, the repeated sounding of the horn is often overlooked but fundamental to Tolkien’s story. The binary images created by Tolkien establish a series of foils that emphasizes his greater message, and the book serves as a pivot point for the whole trilogy. One of the great scholarly debates is over the meaning of “two towers.” Are they two specific towers? Are they symbolic of Gandalf and Saruman? Or the forces of good and evil? With Tolkien, all of these answers are true. It is a fantasy epic published in three novels, each with two parts. The second novel, The Two Towers, focuses on binary sets of traditional medieval images. ![]() Tolkien was a great medieval scholar, and The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a pastiche of the great medieval heroic stories set in his fictional world Middle Earth. The trilogy describes the journey of the Fellowship of the Ring, a loose union of disparate forces of good, and their quest to destroy the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom that would vanquish the forces of evil under the Dark Lord Sauron. Part two discusses Peter Jackson’s alteration of Tolkein’s efforts in the film adaptation of the trilogy. This article is part one of a two part analysis of the incorporation of elements from The Song of Roland into J.
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