The Legend Of Charlemagne, A Love Story
The Legend of Charlemagne is one of the most interesting and insightful stories of Italo Calvino. This amazing writer was born in Cuba to Italian parents. This short story shows how intelligent and wise he was.
Calvino had a hard time choosing between a radical realism and a fantasy without borders. The legend of Charlemagne is a good example of this. It is a fantastic and almost surreal story that manages to paint a deep and analytical vision of what a passionate love really is.
Many of Calvino’s works sound a bit like fairy tales, and so does this story. In this case, the purpose of the story is not just to point out a moral, but to show us something about love. Italo Calvino’s analysis of the subject is also very reminiscent of modern psychoanalysis.
The legend of Charlemagne begins as follows:
“In the autumn of his age, Charlemagne fell in love with a German woman. The barons became extremely worried when they saw that the king envied his state affairs because of his new love. “
It is interesting that Italo Calvino had an older and powerful man as his protagonist in the story, as fairy tales generally consist of a young couple who overcome everything with their love. It also did not matter who the emperor was, because when he fell in love he became blind to everything else around.
Power and love are not two compatible realities, although they can sometimes go hand in hand. In this case, love becomes stronger than power, which creates problems for the whole kingdom. This is just the beginning of the amazing story.
After falling in love, the unthinkable happened. Suddenly his girlfriend died. Charlemagne was blinded by his pain and kept the embalmed body in his room. He did not want to be separated from her immobile body at all.
The story continues, “Archbishop Turpin became concerned about this passion and suspected that there had been an enchantment, and therefore decided to examine the body. Under the dead woman’s tongue he found a ring with a precious stone. “
He then discovered that it was actually an enchantment that was behind love. Charlemagne was not really in love with the young German. He had instead been exposed to magic.
Italo Calvino shows us here a little of how love really works. There is something that the other person has, but that is not the person himself. Charlemagne fell in love with what the person was wearing, but not with the person as such. If we are to use psychological terms, we can say that love is the activation of a magical object. When you fall in love, you no longer follow logic, but cling to the impossible.
The end of the legend could not have been more surprising. This is what happened after the archbishop found the ring, “As soon as Turpin found the ring, Charles the Great instead fell in love with the archbishop and quickly buried the woman. To avoid the embarrassing situation, Turpin then threw the ring into a lake. Karl fell in love with the lake and refused to leave its shores. ”
Here, too, we see how the unreasonable and passionate love works. Charlemagne did not really care who he was in love with. He therefore fell in love with the archbishop and then a lake that he later did not want to leave. The secret was in the magic ring.
The ring has an edge but without anything in the middle. It is a circle with a void. However, it has a shiny gemstone. This is how love works many times, at least according to some. It is impossible to try to describe such a void, at the same time as it governs the lives of many. Passionate love is born, grows and dies in the imagination.
