Anseis de Carthage à la croisée des genres: le parcours d'un héros épique

This article presents an analysis of Anseis de Carthage (we are currently working on a critical edition of an Italian-French manuscript of this text as part of our doctoral thesis). It is a chanson de geste, composed of rhymed ten-syllable stanzas, that dates from the first half of the 13th century. This epic poem belongs to the King’s Cycle to which it is directly linked as a narrative continuum of the Chanson de Roland. It tells the story of Anseis, Charlemagne’s nephew, and how he obtained the crown of Spain after the emperor’s victory over the Saracens and the liberation of the Iberian Peninsula. Anseis de Carthage clearly belongs to the Carolingian branch of medieval epics ; however, like many of the second generation chansons de geste, it is partly influenced by another medieval literary genre that differs in function from that of the epic : the romance. Through its assimilation of some of the features of the romance into the narrative structure of a chanson de geste, quest for the legitimacy of the eponymous character is what is truly at stake in Anseis de Carthage. We will show that, instead of being presented as a hero at the outset, Anseis becomes a problematic character whose relationships with women, and also with the political community, evolve.