Spanish songs of deeds: definition and examples

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The Spanish songs of deed were really important stories in their day. With medieval origin, ours was not the only country that cultivated them but also in France, for example, they had a lot of presence. So, in this article by a TEACHER, we are going to learn more about these songs that they have in the Song of Mío Cid to its most famous and well-known exponent. Keep reading and discover the definition and examples of Spanish deed songs highlights of our literature.

Index

1. What are the songs of deed
2. How are the Spanish songs of deed
3. Cantar de Mío Cid, the best-known deed song
4. Other examples of Spanish deed songs

It is important, before starting, to know exactly what are the songs of deed. In this case we refer to a narrative genre in verse based on the epic and widely used by minstrels in the Middle Ages, especially between the 11th and 13th centuries. They were recited as a song by the towns in exchange for a tip, since most of the population was illiterate. However, handwritten copies were made in their day, hence we can still read and enjoy them today.

Its length usually varies from 2000 to 20000 verses, although the latter are the least. The normal thing was that they were reduced to about 4000 verses. Otherwise, they could be very long and had to be recited in different days.

The content of these medieval songs focused on the feats of war of some character, such as El Cid, in the case of the Song of Mío Cid. These characters, through their adventures in the epics, show a role model for the public, full of virtues.

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Unlike the chanting of deeds in France and other countries, such as Germany or Russia where it is also cultivated and that add a great number of fantastic elements, Spanish is characterized by everything contrary. That is, it leaves no room for elements far from reality, and loom more to the historical veracity.

In general, these literary manifestations used to possess assonance similar at the end of each verse, so a unitary meaning was built, as we see later.

Another detail that differentiates when singing deed in Spain is the anisoyllabism, also known as heterometry. That is, the verses of a poem, or those of each stanza, they do not keep the classic regularity regarding the number of metric syllables.

Remember also that the Spanish deed songs were differentiated by the assonance, that is, they had assonance rhymes. This means that vowels were repeated between words from the stressed syllable. Thus, the similarity is partial.

The Song of Mío Cid It is the most famous deed song in the Castilian language. In this case it narrates the last exploits of a Castilian gentleman named Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, El Cid Campeador.

The surviving version is believed to date from year 1200, and is considered as the first poetic work of our literature. Moreover, it is the only song of its kind that is almost completely preserved today, since except for the first sheet and a couple more of the codex, everything else remains in our hands. However, the gaps have been deduced thanks to chronicle prosification.

This epic poem consists of a total of 3735 anisoyllabic verses which, as we have seen, means that they have variable length. However, in its metrics verses of 14 to 16 metric syllables predominate, which are divided into a pair of hemistichs which in turn are separated by caesura. Each cited hemistich has an extension of 3 to 11 syllables, which is the minimum unit of prosody.

In this song, the verses are not grouped into stanzas, as is common in poetry, but rather in spins. Each of them does not have a fixed number of verses, but they all have assonance rhymes.

It is not known whether the actual title was Song of Mío Cid, maybe it could be Gesta de Mío Cid.

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Although the Song of Mío Cid was the most famous of these medieval epics in Spain, there are others also important, As the Sing of the bell of Huesca, the Song of the Abbot Don Juan de Montemayor, Epic Epitaph of the Cid, Poem of Fernán González, the seven infants of Lara, Young people of Rodrigo, Song of Roncesvalles or the Song of Sancho II.

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