ABSTRACT
In the Roland texts it would be tempting to contrast the untamed warrior world of adventure, most often symbolised by the wild décor of the immense forest forming the backcloth to the majesty of the great pine, with the civilised, organised world of woman. In Ronsasvals, word ‘garden’ is used not for the exact place where the heroine is, but in a general way. The shade-providing tree is still the traditional pine of the chanson de geste, but unlike the pine in the Oxford text, which is never qualified in its eight occurrences, Belauda’s pine is green. Elisabeth Schulze-Busacker has focused on the study of the stylistic and lexical elements it borrows from troubadour poetry. Her examination of Belauda’s garden highlights the way in which the three traditional elements of the opening stanza of troubadour love songs combine: the season, vegetation, and fauna.
