The Poem of the Cid is of peculiar interest because it belongs to the very dawn of our modern literature, and because its hero was evidently a real personage, a portion of whose history was recorded in this epic not long after the events took place. The Cid is one of the most simple and natural of the epic heroes; he has all a man's weaknesses, and it is difficult to repress a smile at the perfectly natural manner in which, while he slaughters enough Moors to secure himself a place in the heavenly kingdom, he takes good care to lay up gold for the enjoyment of life on earth. The poem is told with the greatest simplicity, naturalness, and directness, as well as with much poetic fire.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE CID.
Robert Southey's Chronicle of the Cid. . . . Appendix contains Poetry of the Cid by J. H. Frere, 1808, new ed., 1845;
Matthew Arnold's Poem of the Cid, MacMillan, 1871, vol. xxiv., pp. 471-485;
George Dennio's The Cid: A short Chronicle founded on the early Poetry of Spain, 1845;
Butler Clarke's The Cid (in his Spanish Literature, 1893, pp. 46-53); E. E. Hale and Susan Hale's The Cid (in their Story of Spain, 1893, pp. 248-261);
Stanley Lane Poole's The Cid (in his Story of the Moors in Spain, 1891, pp. 191-213);
Sismondi's Poem of the Cid (in his Literature of the South of Europe, 1884, vol. ii., pp. 95-140);