Ut pictura poesis: le cas de La Chanson de Roland Christophe Chaguinian Published online: 18 February 2010 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010 Abstract For a long time, students of the Chanson de Roland—G. Paris, G. Lanson, E. Faral, P. Le Gentil, G. Moignet, to name a few—have indicated that the work is highly visual, and that the reader has the impression of seeing the actions being described. In other words, the Chanson is an excellent example of the figure of speech classical rhetoricians call hypotyposis, a lively description used for creating the illu- sion of reality. Unfortunately the aforementioned scholars have not explained which stylistic devices produce such an effect in the Chanson (and neither have the rheto- ricians who defined the trope). The goal of this article is to take stock of these various means: concrete vocabulary, neutral narration, paratactic construction, use of the present tense, montage etc., all of which contribute to rendering this composition highly visual. The analysis makes use of data produced by cognitive psychologists who study contexts in which verbal information lends itself to visualization. An unexpected consequence of the analysis of the Chanson de Roland from this per- spective is the revelation of its stylistic ‘modernity’, since scholars associate the birth of the ‘modern novel’, in the 19th century, with the generalization of such techniques. Keywords Chanson de Roland Á Chanson de geste Á Hypotyposis Á Modernity Á Visualization Á Style C. Chaguinian (&) University of North Texas, Foreign Languages and Literatures, 1155 Union Circle 311127, Denton, TX 76203-5017, USA e-mail: cchaguin@unt.edu Present Address: C. Chaguinian 3024 Broken Bow Str., Denton, TX 76209, USA 123 Neophilologus (2011) 95:27–49 DOI 10.1007/s11061-010-9198-0