The Afrenta de Corpes: Embodied Empathy in Cantar de Mio Cid

Abstract

This study is an effort to understand the ways in which the poet of the Cantar de Mio Cid employs rhetorical devices as a way of enhancing the embodied empathy in his audience. I look into theories of performativity extant during the composition of the Cantar that the Cid-poet may have utilized to heighten the dramatic effect of his poem. The Hispano-Roman rhetorician, Quintilian, offers a guideline for orators and performers on how to put themselves «in the shoes» of abused victims and in doing so, move their audience to tears and/or anger. Following these rhetorical strategies, the author of the Cantar stages a performative act of the Afrenta de Corpes, in which the Infantes de Carrión nearly killed their wives, to move the public to feel the harrowing pain of the victims as their own as well as intense anger toward the evildoers.