Minstrelsy Epic: Origins, Evolution, and Poema de Mio Cid
The Master of Minstrelsy: The Epic
It is a popular character; the Renaissance and the Baroque are cultured.
Epics: Origins and Characteristics
Epics have their origin in the barbaric chants sung before the battle to inspire courage. The term refers to sung tales of facts and events that were sung or recited by bards. These are for information and news, which derives one of its characteristics: realism. The word epic refers to featuring the exploits of heroes in the community who are identified, and these heroes reflect concerns, aspirations, and desires of self-assertion. It follows the national character.
Metrics
His poems range from 10 to 20 syllables, divided into two hemistiches from 6 to 85 syllables. Monorrimas are grouped in runs of varying length and irregular rhyming.
Language and Style
When reciting, the minstrels used features peculiar to the epic (epic style). Being orally transmitted literature, resources were used spoken language (oral style form).
Evolution
Time of Training
It stretches from its origins to 1140. The songs are brief and lost.
Era of Plenitude
Ranging from 1140, composition of the Poem of the Cid, to 1236. The songs are more extensive and perfect and highlights the influence of the French epic.
Time of Prosifications
Ranging from 1236 to 1350. The songs become sources of information for medieval chroniclers, that prosifican and include in their chronicles.
Time of Decline
Covers from 1350 to 1480. Two processes affect the novels: first novel is, on the other fragment, leading to romance.
The Poema de Mio Cid
Authorship and Composition Date
The author is anonymous. Menendez Pidal estimated date of composition about 1140; others change, dating from the late twelfth or early thirteenth. Menendez Pidal argued, based on linguistic data and metrics that the poem could be the work of two authors. The first had to write the Song of exile and some of the other two. The second had to reform the original poem, adding the remainder. It also forgets the rhyme difficult, so the runs are longer.
Plot, Theme, and Structure
The poem exalts the life of the Castilian hero Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar. Banished by Alfonso VI of Castile, he goes and conquers the city of Valencia. Later, he reconciles with the King, and the Cid just marrying their daughters to infants of Navarra and Aragon. The issue is the enlargement process of the hero from disgrace to the recovery of it and maximize the social elevation. The poem is divided into:
- Song of exile: describes as the Cid Castilla leaves and begins to battle against Moorish
- Song of the marriage: he speaks about the conquest of Valencia, his reconciliation with the king and how the Cid’s daughters marry the heirs of Carrion
- Song of the shame of Corp: recounts the outrage of the daughters of the Cid by the heirs of Carrion, how the Cid is compensated in court in Toledo and in the end the Cid’s daughters are married with infants of Navarra and Aragon’s poem shows
Metrics
Metric irregularity. The lines are grouped in runs with the same rhyme. Each verse is two hemistiches combination: 7 +7, 6 +7, 7 +8, 6 +8, 8 +8. Rhyme is assonance, with some anomalies that Pidal justified with the hypothesis-e paragogic. They kept some and unstressed words at the end of a word when the metric is required.
Artistic Values
Emphasizes realism (historically and geographically): Reflects the social organization of the time and describes places, events, and characters true. It also stresses the unity of the work around the central theme of the poet’s skill in showing the Cid as a heroic and humane person and the subtlety with which you enter the humor in the play.