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Article: What are chansons de geste?(ASK CALLiOPe)(Brief article)
- Article from:
- Calliope
- Article date:
- January 1, 2006
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Carus Publishing Co. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Chansons de geste, French for "songs of valorous deeds," were the action movies of the Middle Ages. Exciting entertainment, they told of conflicts between superheroes and supervillains. Professional storytellers called jongleurs performed these action-packed stories wherever knights gathered. Nearly 100 of these Old French epics survive. Many tell of Charlemagne, Roland, and the 12 ...
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Dictionary definition: chanson de geste
The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English;
284 words
...chanson de geste noun phrase plural chansons de geste M19 French (= song of heroic deeds). Any of a group of medieval French epic poems dealing with chivalric and heroic subjects. The earliest was the Chanson de Roland , written about 1100.
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