Journal articles on the topic 'Spanish Epic poem'

España, aparta de mí este cáliz representa un desafío para el poeta que acaba de escribir los poemas luego reunidos bajo el título de Poemas humanos. ¿Cómo congeniar la celebración épica que exige la circunstancia histórica con una poética de la experiencia existencial? Poema singular, ambiguo —y poco comentado—, «Imagen española de muerte» ejemplifica esta dificultad.ABSTRACTEspaña, aparta de mí este cáliz represents a challenge for a poet who has just written poems later collected under the title of Poemas humanos (‘Human Poems’). How to cope an epic celebration that requires historical circumstances with an existential experience poetics? As a singular, ambiguous and little commented poem «Imagen española de muerte» (‘Spanish Image of Death’) exemplifies this difficulty.Keywords: Vallejo, epic as passion, «Imagen española de muerte» (‘Spanish Image of Death’), España, aparta de mí este cáliz (‘Spain, Let This Cup Pass From Me’).

The popular Uruguayan dessert, Martíín Fierro, takes its name from the famous hero of Argentine writer Joséé Hernandez's epic poem. The poem is regarded as a masterpiece of the gauchesque genre and a symbol of Argentine (and Uruguayan) identity. Hernáández's past as politician, poet and writer is explored in relation to his work, in particular, the epic poem, Martíín Fierro and The Return of Martíín Fierro. The Martíín Fierro dessert evolved from Hernandez's preference for a popular Argentinean dessert of cheese and sweet potato called "Vigilante" to the Uruguayan version of cheese with quince paste, and was thus named in his honor. The influence of the Spanish and Swiss in the history of the dessert's main ingredients, Colonia cheese and quince paste, highlights the adaptation of the Uruguayan cuisine to European traditions, and the adoption of the gaucho literary hero as their own underscores Uruguayan identity with the (Southern cone) region.

In this paper we have focused our attention on the Neo-Latin epic poem entitled Lyrae Heroycae libri quatuordecim (Salamanca, Matías Gast, 1581) by the Spanish humanist Francisco Núñez de Oria. This epic poem, as little known as its author, combines two a priori antagonistic traditions: the classical epic canon and the novel subject of chivalry. However, we can also observe a notable influence of Ovid in this poem, as well as of Breton literature, who, although to a lesser extent than Virgil, is very present in the different metamorphoses of characters and in different allusions of a mythological nature. In the following pages, we will study how the humanist uses these transformations and mythological allusions from different traditions in a Christian key, as part of the same symbolic reading.

AbstractThis article discusses an unpublished vernacular Italian New World epic of the 1580s, which narrates the Spanish conquest of Mexico. The work was authored by the traveler, diplomat, and Orientalist Girolamo Vecchietti, and it is dedicated to Ferdinando I de’ Medici, grand duke of Tuscany. Vecchietti’s poem is striking as a rare epic in terza rima, and as the sole surviving early modern Italian epic to center on the deeds of Cortés, rather than Columbus or Vespucci. It is also intriguing for its ambivalent attitude toward the Spanish colonizing enterprise, portrayed initially as a heroic evangelizing mission, but later shown in a more compromised light.

Assuming that, more than a specialized religious technique, yoga was a cultural phenomenon, and therefore its study should consider its various representations, including those from literature, this article explores the image of yoga in the epic poem Raghuvaṃśa (The dynasty of the Raghus) by the Indian author Kālidāsa (5th century). Thus, key passages are translated for the first time from Sanskrit into Spanish and analyzed, arguing that representation of yoga in the poem rests upon the ideals of equilibrium and self-mastery in accordance with the political, spiritual, and aesthetical values of the period, and noting the importance of such representation for the study of the History of yoga.

The French, English, and Spanish wrote poems about the “New World” to represent it as known rather than unknown in the interpoetics of epistemic incorporation—to take the unknown of the Americas between and among these European cultures to make them known in terms of earlier knowledge. This article focuses on prefatory poems (paratext) and the main poem (text), and espe­cially the threshold between these poets, their interpoetics. It also focuses on beginnings as another threshold and moving across and on. To recognize the recognizable, anagnorisis within the known framework—that is what the texts of exploration and encounter, including poetry, tend to do—can involve misrecognition. Examining dedicatory poems, lyric, pageant, and epic, and how the known and the unknown work in the poetics of representation, this article argues that the interpoetics is between poems, between paratext and text, work and world, a mimesis that involves poems begetting other poems and representing reality.

The objective of this article is to analyze the Gongorism, the polyglotism and the imitatio auctoris of New Spain poets in Hernandia, an 18th century epic poem for which authorship is attributable to the Novohispanic Francisco Ruiz de León as well as to the Spaniard Juan de Buedo y Girón. The study of these three stylistic elements, barely reviewed or unnoticed in previous works, suggests a direct connection to an American context, especially regarding the knowledge of Nahuatl and 17th century Novohispanic poetry, which supports Novohispanic authorship rather than a Spanish one.

RESUMENA partir de la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII, España necesita más que nunca demostrar al resto de naciones europeas la calidad de su literatura. Se persigue por distintas vías recuperar textos canónicos que puedan aportar una imagen de valor nacional, y una de estas vías es la consideración del género épico. En este trabajo analizamos la labor de Juan Francisco Masdeu, jesuita expulso, que, junto a otros miembros de la Compañía, recuperó la figura de Bernardo de Balbuena y su poema heroico "El Bernardo o Victoria de Roncesvalles" (1624) para proponerlo ante Europa como el Tasso español.PALABRAS CLAVEPoesía épica, jesuitas, Bernardo de Balbuena, "El Bernardo", Juan Francisco Masdeu. TITLEThe epic of Jesuits: judgement and comments to Balbuena’s "El Bernardo"ABSTRACTSince the second half of the XVIII century, Spain needed to demonstrate the rest of European nations the quality of its literature. They tried in different ways to recover canonic texts that could show an image of national value. One of these ways was, for instance, the assessment of the epic genre. In this essay, we analyze the aim of Juan Francisco Masdeu, expelled Jesuit, who, with other members of the Company, recovered the figure of Bernardo de Balbuena and his heroic poem "El Bernardo o Victoria de Roncesvalles" (1624) with the objective of proposing Balbuena as the Spanish version of Tasso.KEY WORDSEpic poetry, Jesuits, Bernardo de Balbuena, "El Bernardo", Juan Francisco Masdeu.

This essay examines the complex relationship between poetry and notes in Southey's Roderick, the Last of the Goths (1814) and the ways in which this double textual structure bears upon the national narrative of the poem. Following the popular tradition of annotated metrical tales and oscillating between romance and epic, Southey's poem is shown to be a plural work in which the prose appendage complicates the seemingly clear celebration of the Spanish nation proposed by the poetry. The poetry, indeed, constructs Gothic Spain as a modern-day nation through an accumulation of characters, tales, and objects. In general, the notes support this nation-making project by creating an archeologically reliable history of the nation. Frequently, however, they also subvert this history by unmasking the manipulations and gaps of the nationalist narrative. The counter-text of the prose marginalia can therefore be said to function as a Derridean supplement and, moreover, as a historically localized set of discourses that both construct and disperse the nation. As remarked by one of Southey's first reviewers, this textual strategy constitutes a kind of "knowing style," a subversion of poetry by prose (and vice-versa), particularly significant at a time when the author was not only shifting from radical to conservative positions but also gradually abandoning poetry in favor of historiography. By focusing on the competing narratives of the Spanish nation in prose and verse, this essay provides an insight into Roderick as caught between the contradictory multiplicity of its discourse and the attempt to deliver an ideologically closed narrative.

This article is a pilot for a larger project on the emotions of the suppression of the Society of Jesus, viewed through the prism of Latin writings by Jesuits of the period. It proposes a case study of Portuguese (ex-)Jesuit, Emanuel de Azevedo, who lived and suffered internal exile in Italy (from Rome to the Veneto) in the second half of the eighteenth century. Azevedo composed a large quantity of Latin verse during these unhappy years, from a four-book epic poem on the return of the Jesuits expelled from the American colonies to a twelve-book description of the city of Venice. The main focus here is Azevedo’s collection of Latin verse epistles, Epistolae ad heroas (Venice, 1781), loosely modeled on Ovid. Azevedo writes Latin verse both to temper his own sadness about the suppression and to console Spanish, Portuguese, and American confrères living in exile in the Papal States and in Russia under Catherine the Great.

In cantos 32 and 33 of the third and final part of La Araucana, the narrator digresses from the matter of the Arauco War to recount the story of Queen Dido of Carthage in the anti-Virgilian, historiographic tradition whereby she was a chaste and prudent monarch who sacrificed herself for the good of her people. Ercilla’s version of Dido dialogues with contemporary Neo-Senecan tragedy, particularly two plays on the same subject: Cristóbal de Virués’s Elisa Dido (c. 1585) and Gabriel Lobo Lasso de la Vega’s La honra de Dido restaurada (1587). All three texts explore the tragedy that inevitably befalls commonwealths when women sit on the throne. We study these texts in light of the connections between epic and tragedy in Spanish letters of the late sixteenth century, the history and ideas surrounding women on the throne in early modern Spain, and the episodes of Ercilla’s poem that flank the Dido one.

La Gracia Triunfante en la vida de catharina tegakovita (“Grace triumphant in the life of catherine tekakwitha”), an account of the miraculous life of Kateri Tekakwitha, an Iroquois Indian from New France, traversed language and space to be published in Mexico City, New Spain, in 1724. Juan de Urtassum, a Basque Navarran Jesuit who had spent many years in Mexico, translated his fellow Jesuit Pierre Cholonec's hagiographic text from its original French (first published in Paris in 1717). Two appendixes accompanied the translation. In the first, a learned theological apology, the Mexican cleric Juan Castorena y Urúsa extolled the piety of indigenous women whom he deemed fit to be nuns; the second consisted of short narratives detailing the exemplary lives of New Spanish indigenous women. Urtassum and Castorena compiled the volume in order to advocate for the foundation of convents for indigenous women, presenting Tekakwitha's piety as evidence of indigenous women's capacity for Christian virtue (Díaz, Indigenous Writings 56; Greer, “Iroquois Virgin” 237). While Tekakwitha's sanctity helped Urtassum's case, his knowledge of and indeed interest in her provenance were scant. He locates the Iroquois Nation (the “Provincia de los Iraqueses”) on the northern frontier of New Spain (today's New Mexico), where indigenous groups had resisted Spanish attempts at colonization and evangelization for centuries. He “domesticates” the distant Iroquois for the New Spanish reader, comparing them with the Araucanian Indians of Chile, whose bravery Alonso de Ercilla immortalized in his epic poem La Araucana and who, though geographically distant from Mexico, seemed familiar through the Spanish colonial condition they shared with Urtassum's readers. In a telling moment, in the dedication to his patron that precedes the translation, Urtassum refers to “todo este emispherio” (“this entire hemisphere”). It is clear, however, that this reference encompasses only Spanish imperial possessions, including the recently founded California missions. The distant Iroquois Nation, located in geographically indistinct New France, does not figure in this geopolitical economy, nor do other American territories in the possession of rival imperial powers.

The plot basis of the N. F. Grammatin’s “Uslad and Vsemila. Old Russian Ballad” (1810) – the ballad “Alonzo the Brave and the Fair Imogine” from the novel “Monk” by M. G. Lewis (1796) is determined. To establish the probable source of acquaintance with the Lewis’s ballad, in addition to the English original, Russian (1803) and French (1797) translations of the novel were used for comparison. Comparison of the texts leads to the conclusion that the author is directly acquainted with the English ballad in the original language. To give the ballad a national flavor, Grammatin used a conventional historical background, archaized vocabulary, as well as images and expressions of the national epic tradition. It has been proved that Grammatin used motives of Russian epics to create a ballad on a similar plot ATU 974 “The Homecoming Husband” from the collection of Kirsha Danilov – on Solovei Budimirovich (contamination of two plots – the matchmaking and the return of a husband to his wife’s wedding) and on Dobryna Nikitich and Alyosha Popov (the return of the husband to his wife’s wedding). The basis for combining these different sources – the supposedly “old Spanish ballad” on Alonzo and Imogine (as it is presented by Lewis in the novel) and Russian epics – were Grammatin’s general views on ancient poetry. Revealed the author’s accents in a popular plot. Compared to the English sample, Grammatin reinforces the theme of heavenly punishment for treachery. The bridegroom-dead comes not only in fulfillment of the fidelity’s vow, first of all he is the messenger of heaven, the messenger of the punishing God. The connection of Grammatin’s poem with the ballad experiments of N. M. Karamzin, V. A. Zhukovsky, I. I. Dmitriev, P. A. Katenin, S. P. Zhikharev and other contemporary works are considered.

Resum: El 1818, l’il·lustrat menorquí Joan Ramis i Ramis (1746-1819) va publicar La Alonsíada, un poema èpic en castellà que narra la conquesta per part d’Alfons III d’Aragó de l’illa de Menorca l’any 1287, aleshores en mans sarraïnes. El mateix any es va imprimir també la traducció del text al català, L’Alonsíada, a cura del seu coetani Vicenç Albertí i Vidal (1786-1859). Tot i que es tracten d’una obra original i la seua traducció, hi ha diferències notables en la presentació de les dues versions. Aquestes divergències afectes aspectes de caire civil i polític, com són la finalitat de cada text o el públic al qual estaven adreçats. En aquesta línia, són molt interessants les implicacions que es desprenen dels paratexts presents en cadascuna de les composicions, ja que posen de manifest les distintes direccions preses per cada autor. Així doncs, en aquest article, partint de la tipologia paratextual proposada per Gérard Genette en Umbrales (1987), hem analitzat les diferències existents entre els paratexts de les dues obres. Aquest estudi ens ha permés concretar els punts civils i polítics en què divergeixen, els motius que van poder provocar les dissensions i la manera com es concreten en la globalitat de les dues obres. Paraules clau: La Alonsíada, Joan Ramis, L’Alonsíada, Vicenç Albertí, paratext Abstract: In 1818, the Menorcan enlightened Joan Ramis i Ramis (1746-1819) published La Alonsíada, an epic poem in Spanish that narrates the conquest by Alfons III of Aragon of the island of Menorca in 1287, then in Saracen hands. In the same year, the Catalan translation of the text, L’Alonsíada, was also printed by his contemporary Vicenç Albertí i Vidal (1786-1859). Although they are an original work and its translation, there are notable differences in the presentation of the two versions. These divergences affect aspects of civil and political nature, such as the purpose of each text or the audience to which they were addressed. In this line, the implications that arise from the paratexts present in each of the compositions are very interesting, since they show the different directions taken by each author. Thus, in this article, based on the paratextual typology proposed by Gérard Genette in Paratext: Tresholds of interpretation (1987), we have analyzed the differences between the paratexts of the two works. This study has allowed us to specify the civil and political points in which they diverge, the reasons that could cause the dissensions and the manner in which they are specified in the globality of the two works. Keywords: La Alonsíada, Joan Ramis, L’Alonsíada, Vicenç Albertí, paratext

The essay analyses Juan Ramón Jiménez’s reading of Walt Whitman as an aristocrat. For Jiménez, aristocracy is not a term associated with nobility. Instead, it is related to the intellectual effort that a poet – or any person – makes to improve himself, while at the same time maintaining ties with the folk. Jiménez wrote on Whitman in Alerta and El Modernismo. Apuntes de un curso and mentioned him in other essays and lectures. For Jiménez who used the American poet to foreground his own poetics, Whitman stood as one of the precursors of Spanish and Spanish American modernismo. Jiménez’s preference for the folk, led him to assert that he preferred Whitman’s brief poems to his big epic poetry which was then and continues to be the readers’ favourite.

This essay addresses the question of whether the Spanish epic was composed orally or was a literary creation using the oral techniques of bards but composed in writing. Oral dictation played an important role in even the most literate works of the time. Theme was an important compositional aid employed by bards during performance, and its presence is evident in passages of the Cantar de Mio Cid and the Mocedades de Rodrigo. A new tool of analysis is introduced, the intonation unit, which leads to an understanding of Spanish epic narrative as orally composed and governed by the cognitive constraints of speech. Oral composition eventually included literate individuals whose contributions are linked to the social and political circumstances under which these poems were preserved on parchment.

Abstract One of our central challenges as medievalists consists of how to respond to the question regarding the relevance of medieval literature and other documents. This article suggests that we can easily draw from medieval heroic literature where ideal and also negative examples of successful/failed leadership are provided. The MHG Nibelungenlied, at least in the first part, illustrates dramatically the consequences of a weak, indecisive, impulsive, and manipulable ruler, whose actions ultimately trigger a whole sequence of hatred, violence, and slaughter. The Old Spanish El Poema de Mío Cid sets out almost at the same point, with the protagonist being exiled because of malignment, but in the course of events, he demonstrates convincingly what makes a true, honorable, admirable, and worthy leader. These two epic poems can serve powerfully as illustrations of failed and successful leadership, and can thus offer significant instructions for modern concerns in politics, business, administration, the church, schools, and universities.

First, I would like to comment on the motto of the EACL 11th International Conference (Tartu, September, 2015) derived from Juhan Liiv’s Poem “A Coffin”, in which the poet-philosopher suspects that translation as such, instead of enriching a national culture, would curb and suppress it, if not destroying national creative energy and talent. After that I proceed to enlighten some passages of poetry translating practice from the history of Estonian literature and world literature (medieval epics, etc., and especially Dante Alighieri’s Commedia). My main purpose is to undermine and specify both claims, that is, of poetry’s translatability, as well as of its untranslatability, and to accentuate the relative yet undeniable value of poetry translation as such. In the final part of my discussion, I will concentrate on the recent attempts, in which I have myself been involved, of conveying some inkling of Juhan Liiv’s poetry to the readers in English, Spanish and Italian.

Heinrich Heine (born in Düsseldorf in 1797 – died in Paris in 1856) had not only many places of residence during his years in Germany, but he also made numerous journeys throughout Europe. Thus, during his time in France, he got to know the country substantially better and furthermore he would have liked to undertake a detour to Spain. Since his student days, Spain was for him as a German Jew the epitome of a Jewish- Christian-Islamic symbiosis despite many differences and difficulties. He slipped into the role of the Moors to express his own outsider role within the German Christian majority society. Heine admired the great Jewish achievements and remained critical of Christian claims, although he had become a Protestant after being baptized at the end of his law studies. His tragedy Almansor (1823), poems from the Buch der Lieder (1827), texts in prose and epic poems from the Parisian years as well as in his literary bequest and above all the last collection of poems called Romanzero (1851) with their moving “Spanish” texts, namely the stories about Jews, Christians and Muslims, are the most important poetic evidences of religious coexistence and its problems.

The Spanish Conquest of Mexico provides stirring drama for an epic opera on an American subject It has been set by some 30 composers; the earliest is Graun's Montezuma (1755), and the best-known Spontini's Fernand Cortez, ou la Conquête de Mexique (1809). Antonio Borgese, a Sicilian who ‘fell in love with the English language’, retold the epic story to music by Roger Sessions.How did such an unlikely alliance—a Sicilian poet, an American composer, and Mexican history—come about? Sessions first met Antonio Borgese in 1934 in his home town of Hadley, Massachusetts, when Borgese was teaching at Smith College. In 1935 Borgese made a trip to Mexico, where he was overwhelmed by the early history of that country; on his return, he proposed collaborating on an opera on the subject, although he had never written a libretto. Sessions knew nothing of Mexico's history, but did possess a first edition of Prescott's Conquest of Mexico given to his grandfather, possibly by Prescott himself. Sessions read the Prescott and Bernal Diaz's account, and he too became enthralled. Borgese wisely advised against Sessions's proposed title, Tenochtitlan, arguing, ‘The opera is written for titans; we don't need a title for titans, too’. Instead, he suggested the title Montezuma.

Resumen: El presente artículo estudia la representación épica del mundo indígena mapuche en Cuarta y Quinta parte de La Araucana , continuación literaria de La Araucana de Alonso de Ercilla, publicada por el poeta español Diego Santisteban Osorio en 1597. Su epopeya recrea una serie de enfrentamientos y emboscadas de los hispanos contra los indígenas en las que se pondera el castigo, el dolor, la tortura y martirios de los de Arauco a partir de diversos modelos literarios del Mundo Antiguo — Roma, Numancia, Sagunto— que, en su conjunto, buscan glorificar la guerra de conquista y el holocausto indígena del siglo XVI. Abstract: This article studies the epic representation of the Mapuche indigenous world in the Fourth and Fifth Parts of La Araucana , a literary continuation of La Araucana by Alonso de Ercilla, published by the Spanish poet Diego Santisteban Osorio in 1597. His epic recreates a series of confrontations and ambushes of the Hispanics against the natives in which the punishment, pain, torture, and martyrdom of those from Arauco are pondered based on various literary models of the Ancient World—Rome, Numancia, Sagunto—which, as a whole, seek to glorify the war of conquest and the indigenous holocaust of the 16th century.

Knights-errant by Juliusz Słowacki — Zawisza the Black and Beniowski„Zawisza the Black” and „Beniowski” drama there are one of poorly discussed works by Juliusz Słowacki. The unfinished dramas by the poet, dating from the late, mystical phase of his literature, opens awide field of research. It appears advisable to place the thesis of apossible inspi­ration Słowacki „Don Quixote” by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra when writing drama „Zawisza the Black” and „Beniowski” drama. Spanish novel, which is amockery of chivalric romances and epics, perhaps, has become for author of „Kordian” point of reference for the creation of the world presented these works. Exemplification of these claims is to analyse „Zawisza the Black”, whose title character is seen as knight-errant possessed by madness and unhappy love, like the character of „Don Quixote”. Reinterpretation of the conditions of polish culture made by Słowacki based on demythologization the most famous knight.

There are many ways to look at the making of American poetry. The author begins with the land and Native Americans in the New World, including what is in the United States, decentring or defamiliarizing the Anglo-American tradition by beginning with the Indigenous peoples and their languages and discussing poets of aboriginal, African, and Asian backgrounds in poetry and translation. With settlers, the author begins with Gaspar Pérez de Villagrá, a Creole writing an epic in Spanish, and ends with Forrest Gander, also born in the United States, including a poem that mixes English and Spanish. In between, a mixed group of poets is discussed to show the richness and diversity of American poetry and culture: Anne Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley, Langston Hughes, Joan Kane, Marilyn Chin, Russell Leong, and the translation of Shuri Kido by Gander and Tomoyuki Endo. These are some alternative makings of American poetry in one strand among many, then, now, and going forward.

Gr/edigne Gudhafoc and d/et Gr/ege Deor: Una revisión del tema de las Bestias de la Guerra (57-65h) en las traducciones de la Batalla de Brunanburi.La entrada correspondiente al año 937 de la Crónica Anglosajona narra los hechos que tuvieron lugar en dicha fecha mediante una interpolación poética que constituye una de las piezas más importantes de la poesía heroica del inglés antiguo: La Batalla de Brunanburh. Los versos contenidos en esta entrada son importantes pues su condición y disposición poética nos permite clasifi carlos como poesía heroica del inglés antiguo tanto en la forma (unidades métricas) como en el contenido (imaginería, dicción). Este poema, como tantos otros dentro de la literatura del inglés antiguo (Bueno 2003), usa los hechos históricos como mecanismo narrativo para construir la historia interna del poema experimentando cono los temas (estilo, dicción, imaginería) de la poesía heroica: estilo aliterativo, vocabulario formulaico, el tema de las “bestias de la guerra”, frases sacadas del corpus heroico anglosajón, etc, etc. Parece evidente que estos temas se tendrán que tener en cuenta cuidadosamente cuando se traduzca el texto a otras lenguas. En un trabajo anterior revisé tres grupos diferentes de traducciones y de traductores que consideraron el poema a) de modo aislado, b) en el contexto de la Crónica Anglosajona, y c) como excusa para la creación poética. En este artículo quiero centrarme únicamente en textos de la categoría a) y dentro de ellos analizaré exclusivamente el llamado tema de las “bestias de la guerra” (57-65a), un asunto de gran interés desde el punto de vista de los estudios en traducción poética. Este artículo tiene como objetivo revisar el poema y ver cómo se ha analizado este tema en algunas traducciones importantes, tanto al inglés (Treharne 2004, Hamer 1970, Rodrigues 1996, Crossley-Holland 1982 as revised and edited by Barber 2008) como al español (Lerate & Lerate 2000, Bravo 1998, Bueno 2007). Como complemento se discutirá de modo breve una poco conocida versión del texto en asturiano (Santori 1999).Abstract:The annal for the year 937 of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle narrates the events which took place with a poem that constitutes one of the main pieces of Anglo-Saxon heroic epic poetry: The Battle of Brunanburh. The verses contained in this annal are important because those lines fall into the rhythmical units of OE verse and have diction and imagery associated with heroic poetry. This poem, as many others in OE literature (Bueno 2003), uses history as a narrative device to build the inner story of the text experimenting with the topics (style, diction, imagery) of heroic poetry: alliterative style, formulaic vocabulary, the beasts-of-battle topos, phrases taken from the stock of the heroic corpus, etc. It seems most evident that a careful consideration of these topics has to be made when translating the text into other languages. In a previous work I revised three different groups of translations –and translators– that considered the poem a) in isolation, b) in the context of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, or c) as an excuse for poetic inspiration. In this article I want to concentrate only in texts from category a), and within them, I will exclusively revise the so-called beasts-of-battle topos (57-56a), a very interesting topic from the point of view of poetic translation studies. My aim will be then to revisit how this topos (57-65a) has been dealt with in several important English (Treharne 2004, Hamer 1970, Rodrigues 1996, Crossley-Holland 1982 as revised and edited by Barber 2008) and Spanish (Lerate & Lerate 2000, Bravo 1998, Bueno 2007) translations. As a complement, a version in Asturian (Santori 1999) will be briefl y discussed.

RESUMEN: La reciente incursión de Arturo Pérez-Reverte en territorio cidiano con su novela Sidi era, hasta cierto punto, previsible, pues el interés del autor por la historia y, especialmente, las hazañas bélicas y los héroes es de sobra conocido. Su obra está plagada de personajes como el famoso capitán don Diego Alatriste, pero, mientras que el capitán es un personaje surgido de la imaginación de Pérez-Reverte, el Cid es una figura firmemente integrada en la cultura española: a caballo entre la historia y la fantasía, el Cid cabalga a lomos de su leyenda desde la aparición del Cantar de Mio Cid. Desde entonces, no han sido pocos los autores que han seguido la estela del anónimo poeta y han recogido el mito en sus obras para ofrecernos su particular versión del mismo. Así, el héroe épico se convirtió en protagonista de obras de teatro, cuentos y novelas, y también la música o el cine, que sirvió para darlo a conocer entre el gran público a nivel internacional. A partir de un meticuloso análisis intertextual e interdiscursivo, el presente artículo muestra cómo Sidi incluye alguno de los episodios más famosos de la literatura cidiana, así como los tópicos épicos que configuran a Rodrigo Diaz como caballero ideal. Entre estos elementos tradicionales, se añaden los rasgos fundamentales del héroe cansado que protagoniza los textos revertianos, y, gracias a esta combinación de elementos antiguos y nuevos, el autor ha logrado convertir al Campeador en un personaje propio. ABSTRACT Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s recent incursion in the literary field of el Cid with his novel Sidi was, to a certain extent, predictable, as the author’s interest in history and, especially, war deeds and heroes is very well-known. His works are full of characters like the famous captain don Diego Alatriste, but, whereas the captain is a character born in Pérez-Reverte’s imagination, el Cid is a figure firmly integrated in Spanish culture: halfway between history and fantasy, el Cid’s legend has been developing since the Song of Mio Cid appeared. From that moment onwards, many authors followed the path of the anonymous poet and included this myth in their works to offer their own version of it. Therefore, the epic hero became the protagonist of plays in theatres, tales and novels, and also in music and cinema, which spread the legend internationally amongst a wider audience. Taking a thorough intertextual and interdiscursive analysis as its starting point, this article shows the way Sidi includes some of the most famous literary episodes devoted to el Cid and, also, the topoi that made Rodrigo Díaz an ideal knight. All these traditional elements are blended in the novel with the main features of the ‘tired hero’ who plays the lead in Pérez-Reverte’s texts, and, by this combination of new and old features, the author turns the Campeador into a character of his own.

IntroductionCirque du Soleil, the largest live entertainment company in the world, has eight standing shows in Las Vegas alone, KÀ, Love, Mystère, Zumanity, Believe, Michael Jackson ONE, Zarkana and O. Close to 150 million spectators have seen Cirque du Soleil shows since the company’s beginnings in 1984 and it is estimated that over 15 million spectators will see a Cirque du Soleil show in 2014 (Cirque du Soleil). The Cirque du Soleil concept of circus as a form of theatre, with simple, often archetypal, narrative arcs conveyed without words, virtuoso physicality with the circus artists presented as characters in a fictional world, cutting-edge lighting and visuals, extraordinary innovative staging, and the uptake of new technology for special effects can all be linked back to an early form of circus which is sometimes termed illegitimate circus. In the late 18th century and early 19th century, in the age of Romanticism, only two theatres in London, Covent Garden and Drury Lane, plus the summer theatre in the Haymarket, had royal patents allowing them to produce plays or text-based productions, and these were considered legitimate theatres. (These theatres retained this monopoly until the Theatre Regulation Act of 1843; Saxon 301.) Other circuses and theatres such as Astley’s Amphitheatre, which were precluded from performing text-based works by the terms of their licenses, have been termed illegitimate (Moody 1). Perversely, the effect of licensing venues in this way, instead of having the desired effect of enshrining some particular forms of expression and “casting all others beyond the cultural pale,” served instead to help to cultivate a different kind of theatrical landscape, “a theatrical terrain with a new, rich and varied dramatic ecology” (Reed 255). A fundamental change to the theatrical culture of London took place, and pivotal to “that transformation was the emergence of an illegitimate theatrical culture” (Moody 1) with circus at its heart. An innovative and different form of performance, a theatre of the body, featuring spectacle and athleticism emerged, with “a sensuous, spectacular aesthetic largely wordless except for the lyrics of songs” (Bratton 117).This writing sets out to explore some of the strong parallels between the aesthetic that emerged in this early illegitimate circus and the aesthetic of the Montreal-based, multi-billion dollar entertainment empire of Cirque du Soleil. Although it is not fighting against legal restrictions and can in no way be considered illegitimate, the circus of Cirque du Soleil can be seen to be the descendant of the early circus entrepreneurs and their illegitimate aesthetic which arose out of the desire to find ways to continue to attract audiences to their shows in spite of the restrictions of the licenses granted to them. BackgroundCircus has served as an inspiration for many innovatory theatre productions including Peter Brook’s Midsummer Night’s Dream (1970) and Tom Stoppard’s Jumpers (1972) as well as the earlier experiments of Meyerhold, Eisenstein, Mayakovsky and other Soviet directors of the 1920’s (Saxon 299). A. H. Saxon points out, however, that the relationship between circus and theatre is a long-standing one that begins in the late 18th century and the early 19th century, when circus itself was theatre (Saxon 299).Modern circus was founded in London in 1768 by an ex-cavalryman and his wife, Philip and Patty Astley, and consisted of spectacular stunt horse riding taking place in a ring, with acts from traditional fairs such as juggling, acrobatics, clowning and wire-walking inserted to cover the changeovers between riding acts. From the very first shows entry was by paid ticket only and the early history of circus was driven by innovative, risk-taking entrepreneurs such as Philip Astley, who indeed built so many new amphitheatres for his productions that he became known as Amphi-Philip (Jando). After years of legal tussles with the authorities concerning the legal status of this new entertainment, a limited license was finally granted in 1783 for Astley’s Amphitheatre. This license precluded the performing of plays, anything text-based, or anything which had a script that resembled a play. Instead the annual license granted allowed only for “public dancing and music” and “other public entertainments of like kind” (St. Leon 9).Corporeal Dramaturgy and TextIn the face of the ban on scripted text, illegitimate circus turned to the human body and privileged it as a means of dramatic expression. A resultant dramaturgy focusing on the expressive capabilities of the performers’ bodies emerged. “The primacy of rhetoric and the spoken word in legitimate drama gave way […] to a corporeal dramaturgy which privileged the galvanic, affective capacity of the human body as a vehicle of dramatic expression” (Moody 83). Moody proposes that the “iconography of illegitimacy participated in a broader cultural and scientific transformation in which the human body began to be understood as an eloquent compendium of visible signs” (83). Even though the company has the use of text and dramatic dialogue freely available to it, Cirque du Soleil, shares this investment in the bodies of the performers and their “galvanic, affective capacity” (83) to communicate with the audience directly without the use of a scripted text, and this remains a constant between the two forms of circus. Robert Lepage, the director of two Cirque du Soleil shows, KÀ (2004) and more recently Totem (2010), speaking about KÀ in 2004, said, “We wanted it to be an epic story told not with the use of words, but with the universal language of body movement” (Lepage cited in Fink).In accordance with David Graver’s system of classifying performers’ bodies, Cirque du Soleil’s productions most usually present performers’ ‘character bodies’ in which the performers are understood by spectators to be playing fictional roles or characters (Hurley n/p) and this was also the case with illegitimate circus which right from its very beginnings presented its performers within narratives in which the performers are understood to be playing characters. In Cirque du Soleil’s shows, as with illegitimate circus, this presentation of the performers’ character bodies is interspersed with acts “that emphasize the extraordinary training and physical skill of the performers, that is which draw attention to the ‘performer body’ but always within the context of an overall narrative” (Fricker n.p.).Insertion of Vital TextAfter audience feedback, text was eventually added into KÀ (2004) in the form of a pre-recorded prologue inserted to enable people to follow the narrative arc, and in the show Wintuk (2007) there are tales that are sung by Jim Comcoran (Leroux 126). Interestingly early illegitimate circus creators, in their efforts to circumvent the ban on using dramatic dialogue, often inserted text into their performances in similar ways to the methods Cirque du Soleil chose for KÀ and Wintuk. Illegitimate circus included dramatic recitatives accompanied by music to facilitate the following of the storyline (Moody 28) in the same way that Cirque du Soleil inserted a pre-recorded prologue to KÀ to enable audience members to understand the narrative. Performers in illegitimate circus often conveyed essential information to the audience as lyrics of songs (Bratton 117) in the same way that Jim Comcoran does in Wintuk. Dramaturgical StructuresAstley from his very first circus show in 1768 began to set his equestrian stunts within a narrative. Billy Button’s Ride to Brentford (1768), showed a tailor, a novice rider, mounting backwards, losing his belongings and being thrown off the horse when it bucks. The act ends with the tailor being chased around the ring by his horse (Schlicke 161). Early circus innovators, searching for dramaturgy for their shows drew on contemporary warfare, creating vivid physical enactments of contemporary battles. They also created a new dramatic form known as Hippodramas (literally ‘horse dramas’ from hippos the Attic Greek for Horse), a hybridization of melodrama and circus featuring the trick riding skills of the early circus pioneers. The narrative arcs chosen were often archetypal or sourced from well-known contemporary books or poems. As Moody writes, at the heart of many of these shows “lay an archetypal narrative of the villainous usurper finally defeated” (Moody 30).One of the first hippodramas, The Blood Red Knight, opened at Astley’s Amphitheatre in 1810.Presented in dumbshow, and interspersed with grand chivalric processions, the show featured Alphonso’s rescue of his wife Isabella from her imprisonment and forced marriage to the evil knight Sir Rowland and concluded with the spectacular, fiery destruction of the castle and Sir Rowland’s death. (Moody 69)Another later hippodrama, The Spectre Monarch and his Phantom Steed, or the Genii Horseman of the Air (1830) was set in China where the rightful prince was ousted by a Tartar usurper who entered into a pact with the Spectre Monarch and received,a magic ring, by aid of which his unlawful desires were instantly gratified. Virtue, predictably won out in the end, and the discomforted villain, in a final settling of accounts with his dread master was borne off through the air in a car of fire pursued by Daemon Horsemen above THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA. (Saxon 303)Karen Fricker writes of early Cirque du Soleil shows that “while plot is doubtless too strong a word, each of Cirque’s recent shows has a distinct concept or theme, that is urbanity for Saltimbanco; nomadism in Varekai (2002) and humanity’s clownish spirit for Corteo (2005), and tend to follow the same very basic storyline, which is not narrated in words but suggested by the staging that connects the individual acts” (Fricker n/p). Leroux describes the early Cirque du Soleil shows as following a “proverbial and well-worn ‘collective transformation trope’” (Leroux 122) whilst Peta Tait points out that the narrative arc of Cirque du Soleil “ might be summarized as an innocent protagonist, often female, helped by an older identity, seemingly male, to face a challenging journey or search for identity; more generally, old versus young” (Tait 128). However Leroux discerns an increasing interest in narrative devices such as action and plot in Cirque du Soleil’s Las Vegas productions (Leroux 122). Fricker points out that “with KÀ, what Cirque sought – and indeed found in Lepage’s staging – was to push this storytelling tendency further into full-fledged plot and character” (Fricker n/p). Telling a story without words, apart from the inserted prologue, means that the narrative arc of Kà is, however, very simple. A young prince and princess, twins in a mythical Far Eastern kingdom, are separated when a ceremonial occasion is interrupted by an attack by a tribe of enemy warriors. A variety of adventures follow, most involving perilous escapes from bad guys with flaming arrows and fierce-looking body tattoos. After many trials, a happy reunion arrives. (Isherwood)This increasing emphasis on developing a plot and a narrative arc positions Cirque as moving closer in dramaturgical aesthetic to illegitimate circus.Visual TechnologiesTo increase the visual excitement of its shows and compensate for the absence of spoken dialogue, illegitimate circus in the late 18th and early 19th century drew on contemporaneous and emerging visual technologies. Some of the new visual technologies that Astley’s used have been termed pre-cinematic, including the panorama (or diorama as it is sometimes called) and “the phantasmagoria and other visual machines… [which] expanded the means through which an audience could be addressed” (O’Quinn, Governance 312). The panorama or diorama ran in the same way that a film runs in an analogue camera, rolling between vertical rollers on either side of the stage. In Astley’s production The Siege and Storming of Seringapatam (1800) he used another effect almost equivalent to a modern day camera zoom-in by showing scenic back drops which, as they moved through time, progressively moved geographically closer to the battle. This meant that “the increasing enlargement of scale-each successive scene has a smaller geographic space-has a telescopic event. Although the size of the performance space remains constant, the spatial parameters of the spectacle become increasingly magnified” (O’Quinn, Governance 345). In KÀ, Robert Lepage experiments with “cinematographic stage storytelling on a very grand scale” (Fricker n.p.). A KÀ press release (2005) from Cirque du Soleil describes the show “as a cinematic journey of aerial adventure” (Cirque du Soleil). Cirque du Soleil worked with ground-breaking visual technologies in KÀ, developing an interactive projected set. This involves the performers controlling what happens to the projected environment in real time, with the projected scenery responding to their movements. The performers’ movements are tracked by an infra-red sensitive camera above the stage, and by computer software written by Interactive Production Designer Olger Förterer. “In essence, what we have is an intelligent set,” says Förterer. “And everything the audience sees is created by the computer” (Cirque du Soleil).Contemporary Technology Cutting edge technologies, many of which came directly from contemporaneous warfare, were introduced into the illegitimate circus performance space by Astley and his competitors. These included explosions using redfire, a new military explosive that combined “strontia, shellac and chlorate of potash, [which] produced […] spectacular flame effects” (Moody 28). Redfire was used for ‘blow-ups,’ the spectacular explosions often occurring at the end of the performance when the villain’s castle or hideout was destroyed. Cirque du Soleil is also drawing on contemporary military technology for performance projects. Sparked: A Live interaction between Humans and Quadcopters (2014) is a recent short film released by Cirque du Soleil, which features the theatrical use of drones. The new collaboration between Cirque du Soleil, ETH Zurich and Verity Studios uses 10 quadcopters disguised as animated lampshades which take to the air, “carrying out the kinds of complex synchronized dance manoeuvres we usually see from the circus' famed acrobats” (Huffington Post). This shows, as with early illegitimate circus, the quick theatrical uptake of contemporary technology originally developed for use in warfare.Innovative StagingArrighi writes that the performance space that Astley developed was a “completely new theatrical configuration that had not been seen in Western culture before… [and] included a circular ring (primarily for equestrian performance) and a raised theatre stage (for pantomime and burletta)” (177) joined together by ramps that were large enough and strong enough to allow horses to be ridden over them during performances. The stage at Astley’s Amphitheatre was said to be the largest in Europe measuring over 130 feet across. A proscenium arch was installed in 1818 which could be adjusted in full view of the audience with the stage opening changing anywhere in size from forty to sixty feet (Saxon 300). The staging evolved so that it had the capacity to be multi-level, involving “immense [moveable] platforms or floors, rising above each other, and extending the whole width of the stage” (Meisel 214). The ability to transform the stage by the use of draped and masked platforms which could be moved mechanically, proved central to the creation of the “new hybrid genre of swashbuckling melodramas on horseback, or ‘hippodramas’” (Kwint, Leisure 46). Foot soldiers and mounted cavalry would fight their way across the elaborate sets and the production would culminate with a big finale that usually featured a burning castle (Kwint, Legitimization 95). Cirque du Soleil’s investment in high-tech staging can be clearly seen in KÀ. Mark Swed writes that KÀ is, “the most lavish production in the history of Western theatre. It is surely the most technologically advanced” (Swed). With a production budget of $165 million (Swed), theatre designer Michael Fisher has replaced the conventional stage floor with two huge moveable performance platforms and five smaller platforms that appear to float above a gigantic pit descending 51 feet below floor level. One of the larger platforms is a tatami floor that moves backwards and forwards, the other platform is described by the New York Times as being the most thrilling performer in the show.The most consistently thrilling performer, perhaps appropriately, isn't even human: It's the giant slab of machinery that serves as one of the two stages designed by Mark Fisher. Here Mr. Lepage's ability to use a single emblem or image for a variety of dramatic purposes is magnified to epic proportions. Rising and falling with amazing speed and ease, spinning and tilting to a full vertical position, this huge, hydraulically powered game board is a sandy beach in one segment, a sheer cliff wall in another and a battleground, viewed from above, for the evening's exuberantly cinematic climax. (Isherwood)In the climax a vertical battle is fought by aerialists fighting up and down the surface of the sand stone cliff with defeated fighters portrayed as tumbling down the surface of the cliff into the depths of the pit below. Cirque du Soleil’s production entitled O, which phonetically is the French word eau meaning water, is a collaboration with director Franco Dragone that has been running at Las Vegas’ Bellagio Hotel since 1998. O has grossed over a billion dollars since it opened in 1998 (Sylt and Reid). It is an aquatic circus or an aquadrama. In 1804, Charles Dibdin, one of Astley’s rivals, taking advantage of the nearby New River, “added to the accoutrements of the Sadler’s Wells Theatre a tank three feet deep, ninety feet long and as wide as twenty-four feet which could be filled with water from the New River” (Hays and Nickolopoulou 171) Sadler’s Wells presented aquadramas depicting many reconstructions of famous naval battles. One of the first of these was The Siege of Gibraltar (1804) that used “117 ships designed by the Woolwich Dockyard shipwrights and capable of firing their guns” (Hays and Nickolopoulou 5). To represent the drowning Spanish sailors saved by the British, “Dibdin used children, ‘who were seen swimming and affecting to struggle with the waves’”(5).O (1998) is the first Cirque production to be performed in a proscenium arch theatre, with the pool installed behind the proscenium arch. “To light the water in the pool, a majority of the front lighting comes from a subterranean light tunnel (at the same level as the pool) which has eleven 4" thick Plexiglas windows that open along the downstage perimeter of the pool” (Lampert-Greaux). Accompanied by a live orchestra, performers dive into the 53 x 90 foot pool from on high, they swim underwater lit by lights installed in the subterranean light tunnel and they also perform on perforated platforms that rise up out of the water and turn the pool into a solid stage floor. In many respects, Cirque du Soleil can be seen to be the inheritors of the spectacular illegitimate circus of the 18th and 19th Century. The inheritance can be seen in Cirque du Soleil’s entrepreneurial daring, the corporeal dramaturgy privileging the affective power of the body over the use of words, in the performers presented primarily as character bodies, and in the delivering of essential text either as a prologue or as lyrics to songs. It can also be seen in Cirque du Soleil’s innovative staging design, the uptake of military based technology and the experimentation with cutting edge visual effects. Although re-invigorating the tradition and creating spectacular shows that in many respects are entirely of the moment, Cirque du Soleil’s aesthetic roots can be clearly seen to draw deeply on the inheritance of illegitimate circus.ReferencesBratton, Jacky. “Romantic Melodrama.” The Cambridge Companion to British Theatre 1730-1830. Eds. Jane Moody and Daniel O'Quinn. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2007. 115-27. Bratton, Jacky. “What Is a Play? 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Circus: The Australian Story. Melbourne: Melbourne Books, 2011. Stoddart, Helen. Rings of Desire: Circus History and Representation. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. Swed, Mark. “Epic, Extravagant: In Ka the Acrobatics and Dazzling Special Effects Are Stunning and Enchanting.” Los Angeles Times 5 Feb. 2005. 22 Aug. 2014 ‹http://articles.latimes.com/2005/feb/05/entertainment/et-ka5›.Sylt, Cristian, and Caroline Reid. “Cirque du Soleil Swings to $1bn Revenue as It Mulls Shows at O2.” The Independent Oct. 2011. 14 Sep. 2014 ‹http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/cirque-du-soleil-swings-to-1bn-revenue-as-it-mulls-shows-at-o2-2191850.html›.Tait, Peta. Circus Bodies: Cultural Identity in Aerial Performance. London: Routledge, 2005.Terdiman, Daniel. “Flying Lampshades: Cirque du Soleil Plays with Drones.” CNet 2014. 22 Sept 2014 ‹http://www.cnet.com/news/flying-lampshades-the-cirque-du-soleil-plays-with-drones/›.Venables, Michael. “The Technology Behind the Las Vegas Magic of Cirque du Soleil.” Forbes Magazine 30 Aug. 2013. 16 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelvenables/2013/08/30/technology-behind-the-magical-universe-of-cirque-du-soleil-part-one/›.