Authorship and Composition Date
The whole work is anonymous. There was a theory to which few subscribe that it was composed by two people. That theory is no longer supported.
The linguistic analysis allows the reconstruction of a 12th century previous text, which Ramón Menéndez Pidal dated circa 1140. Date and authorship are still open to debate ).Certain aspects of the conserved text belong to a well-informed author, with precise knowledge of the law in effect by the end of the 12th century and beginning of the 13th, who knew the zone bordering with Burgos.
The language used is that of a cultured author, a lawyer who worked for some chancellery or at least as a notary of some nobleman or monastery, since he knows accurately the legal and administrative language with technical precision, and he dominates several registers, among them, the proper style of the medieval cantares de gesta.
Only one copy is conserved from Cantar de Mio Cid that was made in the 14th century (deduced from the date of the manuscript), from another copy that was made by a copyist named Per Abbat. The copy made by Per Abbat is dated 1207 «MCC XLV» (for the Hispanic period, that is in the actual date system, from which must be subtracted 38 years). In the medieval forms, the copyist would sign and date at the end of the document after finishing writing the document.
Read more about this topic: Cantar De Mio Cid
Famous quotes containing the words authorship, composition and/or date:
“The Bible is good enough for me, just the old book under which I was brought up. I do not want notes or criticisms, or explanations about authorship or origins, or even cross- references. I do not need, or understand them, and they confuse me.”
—Grover Cleveland (1837–1908)
“Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“Until I was twenty-five, I had no development at all. From my twenty-fifth year I date my life. Three weeks have scarcely passed, at any time between then and now, that I have not unfolded within myself. But I feel that I am now come to the inmost leaf of the bulb, and that shortly the flower must fall to the mould.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)