El Cid | Legitimation and the Hero's Exemplary Function in the Cantar de mio Cid and the Chanson de Roland
In the following excerpt, Duggan traces the action in this epic work and discusses differences between it and other Romance epics, concluding that the heroes of such epics, though they possess less than ideal lineage, attain nobility and legitimacy through their actions.
The Chanson de Roland and the Cantar de mio Cid are often compared, but usually for the wrong reasons. The Spanish poem has a documentary quality about it, and the single poetic version which has survived the Middle Ages, in a manuscript identified as the product of one Per Abbat, a scribe, was composed within a hundred and eight years of the hero's death. The Cid is thus much closer in narrative type to, say, Garin le Loherain or to the Canso d'Antiocha than it is to the Roland, which in its earliest extant form is at least three hundred years...
[The entire page is 4733 words long]
Join eNotes
The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:
Summary and Analysis – Themes – Characters – And much more...
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
Related Topics
Tell a friend about El Cid at eNotes.
