SPANISH LITERATURE. For the sake of convenience the history of Spanish literature as written in the motherland may be regarded as constituting four chronological divisions, namely, the Old Spanish period, extending from the 12th century down to the 16th; the Golden Age, which runs through the 16th and 17th centuries; the period of the 18th century; and the. more recent period, which reaches from the beginning the 19th century the present moment.
Old Spanish Heroic tradition in forms the most noble composition that the Middle Ages have bequeathed to Spain, the (Poema del Cid' (or 'Cantu. de Mio Cid'). This seems to have taken form by the middle of the 12th century or not long after that date, and as is unfortunately the case with still other notable works of the Old Spanish period, it is preserved to us in but a single manuscript, which is in a badly garbled condition. Belonging to the 14th century and being, therefore, about a century and a half later than the original composition, this manuscript must not be deemed a faithful transcript of the poet's labors; in all probability it reflects many of the linguistic and other features of the scribe's own time. As it stands, the document has some 3,700 odd lines. These are usually bound together into stanzas or lasses (to use a term employed to designate a similar ar rangement in Old French epic poetry) of irregular length, with vocalic rhyme or as sonance as the binding principle. In the manu script the lines vary greatly as to the number of syllables that they contain; some lines are very long, others are very short. As a result there are scholars who consider the poem as having been ametrical in the inception. It is possible, however, to argue that the original document was perfectly metrical and to say that its present metrical irregularity is due to imperfect redaction and to scribal bungling. On the basis of facts derived from internal criti cism and in consonance with a feeling that the true Old Spanish heroic measure was the same that is still seen in the romances or ballads (the oldest of which are heroic in nature), it is not unwarrantable to declare that the author of the 'Poema del Cid' used long verses of 14 to 16 syllables each, and that the individual verses broke regularly into half-lines with a verse stress on the seventh syllable in each half-line. Mingling fact and fiction, the 'Poema' is a fine epic dealing with the career of a great Castilian hero, who lived in the 11th century, Rodrigo or Ruy Diaz de Bivar, who received the title "Cid," ((Lord," from the Moors. We see him passing into exile at the behest of his monarch, Alphonso VI of Castile and Leon, engaging in battle with both Moor and Christian, and assuming control of Va lencia, after he has taken it from the Moor.
The element of fiction seems to be the prevail ing one in another document, the rimada del Cid,' apparently of the 14th cen tury. This (termed also the (Rodrigo') is deemed by some a chronicle in verse, while others do not hesitate to call it an epic or at least an aggregation of epic ballads. Its nar rative relates especially to the early life of the hero; its form exhibits a disturbance of verse conditions no less serious than in the case of the (Poema del Cid.' A still older hero, the valorous Castilian Count Fernin Gonzalez of the 10th century, is celebrated in a school epic (back of which there was probably a more popular composition) of the 13th century. It is in monorhymed quatrains of alexandrines,— a form of verse which now gained favor for narrative purposes and maintained itself in vogue for some time — and it is not preserved in its entirety.
Such are the documents regularly cited as examples of Old Spanish epic composition; no others appear to have survived. But Old Spanish heroic tradition was certainly more ex tensive and treated of still other warriors and their deeds. Whether this was done in poems of some length or only in brief epico-lyric com positions or ballads is a matter under discus sion, but at all events we know that during the Middle Ages the juglares or minstrels of Spain entertained both nobles and commoners with their versified accounts of the exploits of various heroes besides those already men tioned. These versified accounts have passed from view, but the substance of them—with occasional retention of verses of the originals — are found in prosified form in the General,' which was begun at the incentive of King Alphonsus X of Castile in the 13th century, so that this great chronicle is aptly styled a treasure house of Old Spanish heroic tradition. On the basis, then, of material preserved in the (Cranica General' we may assume that older Spain possessed heroic song shout the Seven Infantes de Lara; about an Asturian hero, one Bernardo del Carpio; about certain descendants of Count Fernan Gonzalez; about Roderick the Goth, whose criminal love is said to have brought on the invasion of Spain by the Moors; and about Charlemagne, who is alleged to have been a youthful exile in Saracen Spain. It may be stated here that from the 15th century on all the heroic figures enumerated play a part in the rich balladry of Spain that is actually preserved.