El Cid: ¿un héroe para el siglo XXI? El mundo de frontera del siglo XI y la violencia en la novela Sidi de Arturo Pérez-Reverte

Abstract

In his best-seller and adventure novel Sidi. An Account of the Frontier (2019), Arturo Pérez-Reverte recreates part of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar᾿s first exile already portrayed in the first part of the Cantar de Mio Cid. This recreation aims to awake more interest in Spanish medieval history and to redress the Cid᾿s image after its manipulation during Franco᾿s times. The aim of this study is to analyze the heroic image of Cid in Pérez-Reverte᾿s fiction—an image in line with that presented by historians—and the representation of violence and brutality among Christians and Muslims in the eleventh-century frontier world. Though war idealization may not be easily avoided in the biography of a legendary hero, Pérez-Reverte still provides a nuanced, critical representation of violence. However, his focus is laid on a different character, Diego Ordoñez rather than Rodrigo Díaz, who emerges as a bi-cultural hero who has developed powerful leadership skills—that is, a model of hero arguably more suitable for modern times.