Medieval Literature and Epic Poetry: Key Features
Characteristics of Medieval Literature
Theocentrism and Religiosity: Life and literature were clearly marked by the dominant cultural position of religion. The church imposed its vision of the world: life as a transit of suffering, which would be rewarded with eternity. This feeling pervaded all walks of life.
Prevalence of Orality: The first literary manifestations had an oral origin, or were designed for public reading. This entails that they contain a large number of spoken resources: appeals to listeners, repetition, parallelism, anaphora, etc.
Didacticism: Medieval literature often sought a practical use: the spread of moral and religious teachings. In a time when illiteracy was widespread, literature was conceived as a means of disseminating ideology.
Literary Sources: We find many different influences in medieval Castilian literature:
- Greco-Roman: Knowledge of the classical world was collected in numerous books, preserved in medieval monasteries.
- Muslim: The prolonged stay of the Muslim people in the peninsula left a great impression on our first literary stories. The Romance language has words of Arabic origin, such as the *jarchas*. (Eastern influence: *The Thousand and One Nights*).
The Medieval Epic: The Mester de Juglaría
The *cantares de gesta* are works of epic verse recounting the exploits of heroes. The oral dissemination of these stories corresponded to the *juglares* (minstrels), actors and singers who wandered from village to village performing in plazas or castles. The minstrel was professionally devoted to recitation, and his show had to have different ingredients: music, mime, etc., to attract and sustain public attention. The office of the minstrels was called *mester de juglaría*.
The *mester de juglaría* has its own style. Metrically, epic poems employ an indefinite series of major art verses, around 16 syllables, with caesura (internal break) and assonance rhyme. The minstrels used specific resources for oral recitation:
- Frequent calls to the public to gain their interest and capture their benevolence.
- Repetitions and parallelisms, which facilitate both recitation and memorization by the recipient.
- Prevalence of simple and coordinated sentences, easier to remember.
- Use of the present tense to bring the action closer to the listeners.
Poema del Mio Cid is an epic poem that tells in verse the deeds of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar. It is the oldest of the *cantares* and the only one preserved almost intact.
Date: It has come down to us in a fourteenth-century manuscript, a copy of another made in 1207. A total of 3730 verses are preserved.
Author: The poem is anonymous.
Content and structure of the poem: The poem begins *in medias res*, that is, ignoring a series of contents that the audience is supposed to know. It is divided into three parts:
- Cantar del destierro (Song of Exile)
- Cantar de las bodas (Song of the Wedding)
- Cantar de la afrenta de Corpes (Song of the Shame of Corpes)
Theme: The central theme is honor. Having lost his honor after being accused and banished, the hero’s main concern will be to regain social honor. He apparently achieves military honor with the conquest of Valencia and the wedding of his daughters to the heirs of Carrión, but after the second offense, this time a family one, he is forced to retrieve it again.