Formula and Theme in the CMC

Abstract

CRITICS have shown in the past that the theme of the Cantar de Mio Cid is honor. Most notable of these is the study by Pedro Salinas entitled El Cantar de Mio Cid, poema de la honra.' For Salinas, the Cid's goal is to return with honor to Castile (p. 32). The formula of the poem is to show that los duelos se tornan gozos (p. 35), and this is carried completely through the poem. The theme of honor has also been studied by Fernando Wolf,2 G. T. Northup,3 Eleazar Huerta,4 and Gustavo Correa.5 Joaquin Casalduero views the poem as containing three themes: battles, journeys and weddings.' Colin Smith, in his introduction to Poema de Mio Cid,7 sees three themes also, but for him they are the Cid's rise to power, honor, and that of being a good soldier. He adds that there may also be a fourth theme, that of uprightness. To these, one could possibly add the separation theme as pointed out by Pedro Salinas in his study La vuelta al esposo. 8 From these varied opinions, it is apparent that the poem consists of many themes. Albert B. Lord, in his book The Singer of Tales, explains the reason for this: consists of the building of lines and half lines by means of formula and formulaic expressions and the building of songs by the use of themes.9 That is, theme and formula are mutually dependent elements of epic composition, used in a repetitive manner to create the song. Formula is the exact repetition of a phrase while formulaic expression allows for variation in the half line. Theme is a ''recurrent element of narration or description (p. 73). No one to date has shown this mutual dependence of formula and theme. The most complete study to date of formula is that of Edmund de Chasca,'? who has shown that the poem is believed to be of oral composition while narrative organization of the poem has been studied by Prof. Ruth Webber.I The purpose of this paper is to show the use of formulaic expression as a means of theme building in what are considered the three most predominant themes (honor, battles and weddings) and to present an analysis of the entire poem following Prof. Webber's thematic outline. The data for this study were obtained from the imput of a special word list for the three major themes into an IBM 370 computer using a program designed to give a density map and other statistical data from this list. The Concordance to Poema de Mio Cid'2 was used to obtain the special word listing. All forms of the words (verbs, nouns, adjectives, etc.) were listed for each of the three themes. Formulaic expressions are those listed by Edmund de Chasca, revised to include only those of more than three