Read the two sources below and analyze them and write answering the following:
Who is the author?
Is the author a man/woman, rich/poor, powerful/not powerful, foreign observer/member of the society, young/old, first-hand observer/secondary writer, some with something to gain/someone with something to lose?
These are just categories to think about that might tell us something about the text and its content.
Why is the author writing this?
Who is the author writing it for (that is, who is the audience)? Does the audience affect the content or style? If so, how?
When did the author write this? Does the date it was written affect its content or style?
What genre is the text? In other words, is it a poem, a song, a history, a biography, a story (fiction), an ethnography, a law code, a religious text, a court record, a drama, etc.? How does the genre affect the content?
What does the author include? What does s/he leave out?
Does the success or failure of the author’s life/career affect the content or style?
Do you find the author reliable? Why or why not?
What are the main messages, themes, or points of the text?
What can we learn from the texts about the society that produced them?
What can we learn from them about Western Civilization?
The Battle of Poitiers (732)
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/arab-poitiers732.asp
Einhard Life of Charlemagne
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/einhard1.asp
