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

233 Pages·1993·9.064 MB·English

by  Ion Collas

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The “Poem of the Cid” as a masochistic fantasy: A
psychoanalytic reading
Collas, Ion, Ph.D.
New York University, 1993
Copyright ©1993 by Collas, Ion. All rights reserved.
U M I
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NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
Graduate School of Arts and Science
THE POEM OF THE CID AS A MASOCHISTIC FANTASY
A PSYCHOANALYTIC READING
by
Ion Collas
September 1993
A dissertation in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese
submitted to the faculty of the Graduate School of
Arts and Science in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
at New York University
Approved:
Salvador Martinez
Advisor
Copyright ©1993
by
Ion Collas
All Rights Reserved
To my wife Merope
and my daughters Sophia and Ariana
Acknowledgements
I express my deepest gratitude to Professor Salvador
Martinez who made this dissertation possible by generously
offering me his support and his time and making freely
available to me his medieval expertise.
Warm thanks also to Professors John A. Coleman, Kenneth
Krabbenhoft and Antonio Regalado for their perceptive
reading of the text and their insightful suggestions.
Abstract
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
- v -
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.