ENGLISH

The “Poem of the Cid” as a masochistic fantasy: A psychoanalytic reading [thesis]

By Ion Collas

Book information

Publisher
New York University
Year
1993
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
9 MB (9504327 bytes)
Pages
233\233
Topic
Literature
Time added
2017-08-11 11:48:46

Description

The point being made is that the hero of the Poema de Mio Cid displays an attitude that can properly be characterized as masochistic when he humbly accepts the king's punishment instead of expressing justified anger. That his attitude is masochistic becomes confirmed by his triumphant rehabilitation since masochists are known to submit to pain and suffering in the expectation of great rewards. The Cid's humiliating banishment and subsequent triumph represent the two poles of a typical masochistic fantasy. Just as masochism in real life is the result of an identification with a punishing parent, so too the poetic Cid's masochism is the consequence of an identification with the unjust king. The existence of the identification is symbolically revealed in a key passage of the text. The identification's capital importance resides in the fact that the Cid, by identifying with the king, identifies with Spanish Christendom which the king incarnates. This is the main reason why whatever he conquers over the Moors is sensed by the reader as being conquered by Christian Spain. It is suggested that this commentary fills a gap in Cidian scholarship by providing an explanation of why the Poema has come to be considered the national epic of Spain. The need for such an explanation is made evident by the observation that the hero's stated motivation in subjugating the Moors is not, as generally believed, to promote the Reconquista; it is to acquire wealth by pillage, tribute and booty. The few explicit Spanish-Christian elements of the text (e.g. loyalty to king, appointment of a bishop) on which Pidal and others rely in order to present the Poema as a national epic are far outweighed by the wealth motivation which Pidal ignores although it applies to all the hero's conquests, including Valencia, his private "heredad." Only the hero's identification with the king, superseding the wealth motivation and giving it a national colouring, can account for the patriotic impact of the Poema and its undisputed acceptance as Spain's national epic. A portrait of the historical Cid puts the poetic Cid's masochistic attitude in relief by contrast.

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