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In order to achieve its nationalistic end, the depiction of the
Saracens in the Song of Roland is grossly inaccurate. For a more
informed notion of Islamic religion and culture, see the Koran,
covered in "The Rise of Islam and Islamic Literature" (see pages
1426–1460 in volume B).
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Few poets have attempted to employ terza rima, the highly complex verse
form invented by Dante for the Divine Comedy, in their poetry.
Percy Bysshe Shelley makes use of it in his English-language poem
Ode to the West Wind, covered in "Revolution and Romanticism in
Europe and America" (see, pages 821–823 in volume E).
- When Dante is told that he will journey through Hell,
Purgatory, and Paradise, he protests that he is not worthy,
stating, "I am not Aeneas, am not Paul." Aeneas
travels though the underworld in Virgil's Aeneid,
covered in "The Roman Empire" (see
pages 1055–1134 in volume A), but he does not
travel to Paradise. Similarly, Odysseus undertakes a voyage
to the underworld in the Odyssey, covered in "Ancient
Greece and the Formation of the Western Mind" (see
pages 225–530 in volume A).
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Western prose literature such as Boccaccio's Decameron (Italian)
and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (English) owes its narrative
structure—and many of its plots—to earlier Asian works such as the
Thousand and One Nights, covered in "The Rise of Islam and
Islamic Literature" (see pages 1566–1618 in volume B), and Somadeva's
Kathasaritsagara, covered in "India's Classical Age" (see pages
1342–1350 in volume B).
- Like the Homeric epics, the historical period alluded
to in Beowulf is several centuries prior to the
composition of the poem. See the Iliad, covered
in "Ancient Greece and the Formation of the Western
Mind" (see pages 120–225
in volume A).
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