Intertextuality and Comparative Analysis of Character and/or Themes

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The Conference of the Birds and the Song of Roland
The Song of Roland is indeed an epic poem composed by Turlord in the 11th century. The poem details the life of the Paladins and how they are obedient and loyal to their king. The poem also clarifies the consequences that occur when the Paladins disobey their king. The Song of Roland shares a similar storyline with the Conference of the Birds composed by a Persian poet Farid Ud-Din Attar. The Conference of the Birds is about the search for an ideal spiritual king. The author opposes the idea of having an earthly king because he describes them as cruel. He features a situation where society can exist without kings. This paper compares and contrasts the characters, themes, structure and structural devices applied in the two texts; the Conference of the Birds and the Conference of the Birds.
Religion and culture clash is among the underlying themes in the poems. The authors display culture and religion in a clash over which should dominate society. For instance, in the Song of Roland, the Franks and the Saracens conflict due to cultural and religious differences. They fight over what should come to the foreground to guide and rule the people. The French people in the story admire the Saracens for the beauty of their ornaments, their prowess, and their valor. The Franks, on the other case, believe that Charlemagne’s life responsibility is to defend Christianity (Butler 312). They believe that all people have to be converted from Islam or traditional beliefs to Christianity. They also hold a strong belief that people who object Christianity should be destroyed. Since Islamic Saracens have taken over control of Spain the Charlemagne’s mission is to reclaim their land and restore Christianity as the predominant religion. A similar conflict is evident in the poem the Conference of the Birds. The birds exist in a mixture of social and spiritual hierarchy. All the birds in the society believe that they are inferior just because they do not have a king or a spiritual leader. They are focused on having one. At the start of the play the birds seem to engage in a move to seek a king. After enlightenment they vow to find a “sheikh”. The term “sheikh” means a spiritual leader according to the Islamic religion and not a secular chief (ʻAṭṭār and Abdulla 509). Religion is used as an avenue to knowing the truth and living an organized and peaceful life.
In the narrative element, both texts are based on extensive use of repetition, thesis-antithesis pairs, and parallelism. For instance, Roland supports Ganelon for the dangerous mission to Saragossa. Baligant is contrasted with Charlemagne in the religious conflict between the Muslims and Christians. As opposed to romantic and renaissance literature, the poems focus on action and not introspection. The characters are representative of their actions and not their thoughts or feelings. The narrators in both poems give little explanation about the behavior and actions of the characters. The state gives the audience the freedom to charge the audience based on their actions in the poem. In the Song of Roland, the warriors are described by the use of a few salie...