El Cid: Heroism, Exile, and Redemption in Medieval Spain
The Song of the Cid
The process of glorification of the hero is presented as a model of values. The Song of the Cid narrates the exploits of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, the Cid, a historical character. The poem tells how King Alfonso VI stripped him of his property and banished him from Castile. Thanks to his actions, he regained his lost honor.
In the complex personality of Rodrigo, the author chooses some aspects:
- Royal Loyalty: The Cid remains faithful and loyal to the king, although the king ignores the slander spread by Rodrigo’s enemies.
- Consideration and Honor: Rodrigo gets real forgiveness and his daughters end up marrying into royal lineages, with the infants of Navarra and Aragon.
- Personal Effort and Faith in Christianity: He strives to be a good father and to do justice to his subjects.
- Temperance: In all his actions, the Cid is always prudent.
Authorship and Date of Composition
On the authorship, two hypotheses remain: Saint Stephen of Gormaz or Medinaceli. Currently, criticism tends to consider that information regarding the dating of the work, the early thirteenth century, as valid.
Structure
The Song is composed of 3,730 verses, grouped in monorhyme assonant runs. The verses all have the same number of syllables and are bimember (consist of two hemistiches separated by a caesura).
It is divided into three songs:
Song of Exile
El Cid is exiled by Alfonso VI of Castile. He leaves his family in the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña and takes the road of exile. He sends gifts to the king in submission and servitude in order to achieve forgiveness.
Song of the Weddings
It narrates the conquest of Valencia. There is a public forgiveness. The Song ends with the marriage of the Cid’s daughters to the heirs of Carrión.
Song of the Shame of Corpes
The heirs of Carrión quickly demonstrate their cowardice and hatch revenge on the Cid. They request permission to take their wives to the lands of Carrión, but when they go through the oak woods of Corpes, they abandon them. The Cid calls for justice to the King, who calls Cortes in Toledo. A trial is held and the infants are defeated in a duel. The Song ends with the request from the infants of Navarra and Aragon to marry Ms. Elvira and Doña Sol.
Style
- Epic Epithets: Characterizing adjectives used to highlight the characteristics of the hero.
- Pleonasm: Used to add expressiveness to the text, even if unnecessary.
- Appeals to the Public: They aim to keep the reader or viewer engaged.
- Use of the Arabic word “ya.”
- Frequent Deletion of the Verb: With the elimination of verbal forms, it makes the poem even faster and more dynamic.
- Rhetorical Replays: Replays of the same concept with different words.
Romances
A romance is a poem of variable length, written in eight-syllable verses, in which the even verses rhyme in assonance and the odd verses are loose. The romances have an extremely rich subject matter.
Classification of Romances
- Historical: Their argument is based on political events in the history of the Christian peninsular kingdoms. They can focus on a character or seek to disseminate important news.
- Frontier Romances: They narrated events on the frontier during the Reconquest and reported the development of the war (Abenamar and King Don Juan).
- Moorish Romances: They reflected the vision of the conquered Moors with great drama and sensitivity.