Kinship and Polity in the Poema de Mio Cid

by Michael Harney

Overview

This study of the social content of the only surviving Spanish epic provides a means of assessing the motives and intentions of the protagonist and of other characters. Chapters are devoted to such themes as the multifarious significance of kinship and lineage, with special attention to the role of fathers, uncles, and cousins in the world of clan loyalties; amity as a system of fictive kinship, personal honor, and public organization; the importance of women, and the meaning and function of marriage, dowry, and related practices; the emergence of the polity as a rivalry of social, legal, and economic systems; and the implications, within an essentially kin-ordered world, of the poem's notions of shame, honor, status, and social inequality.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781557530394
Publisher:	Purdue University Press
Publication date:	05/01/1993
Series:	Purdue Studies in Romance Literatures , #2
Pages:	285
Product dimensions:	6.25(w) x 9.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Michael Harney has published several articles and book chapters on Spanish medieval literature.

Editorial Reviews

"Put simply, this is a brilliant book—one of the most significant contributions to Spanish epic studies in a very long time indeed." —Revista de Estudios Hispánicos

". . . brilliant, incisive, interdisciplinary, vastly erudite, and consistently well-written. . . . Harney is constantly giving us stimulating new ways to view the Cantar, ample food for thought, innovative critical perspectives, supported by a mass of new—and always pertinent—bibliography from a panoply of ancillary disciplines. . . . It is among the most pathfinding contributions to Mio Cid scholarship to be written in many a year." —Samuel G. Armistead, University of California, Davis

From the Publisher

. . . brilliant, incisive, interdisciplinary, vastly
erudite, and consistently well-written. . . . Harney is constantly giving us
stimulating new ways to view the Cantar, ample food for thought, innovative
critical perspectives, supported by a mass of new – and always pertinent –
bibliography from a panoply of ancillary disciplines. . . . It is among the
most pathfinding contributions to Mio Cid
scholarship to be written in many a year.”

Samuel G. Armistead

Put simply, this is a brilliant book – one of the most
significant contributions to Spanish epic studies in a very long time indeed.”

Revista de Estudios Hispánicos

Probing the social content of this medieval Spanish epic, Harney (Spanish and comparative literature, U. of Texas at Austin) provides new ways to view not only the protagonist and other characters, but the poem's authorship and audience. He explores themes of kinship; amity as ritual kinship; the function of marriage and dowry; polity; and the implications of shame, honor, status, and social inequality. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews