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242ReviewsLa corónica 32.2, 2004 Mio Cid Studies: 'Some Problems of Diplomatic' Fifty Years On. Eds. Alan Deyermond, David G. Pattison and Eric Southworth. Papers ofthe Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar, 42. London: Department ofHispanic Studies , Queen Mary, University ofLondon, 2002. 182pp. ISBN 0-904-18-893-0 More than half a century after its publication, Sir Peter Russell's °eminal article on diplomatic issues in the Poema de Mio Cid still points the way for challenging, even daring, scholarship in Cidian Studies. The present volume gathers six papers presented during a symposium at Oxford in June, 2002 celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of "Some Problems of Diplomatic" in the Modern Language Review 47 (1952): 340-49. The collection illustrates how new scholarship continues to benefit from the changes in methodology wrought by Russell's long-celebrated article, and from the conclusions it reached. Of exceptional interest among these papers is a contextual piece by the now-retired Russell himself, "Reinventing an Epic Poet: 1952 in Context ". In it, Russell reflects on the origins of his study and the "state of the question" at mid-century in both the Spanish intellectual and Oxonian contexts . In the former, contradicting the Pidalian orthodoxy implied certain professional risks for Spaniards, and being ignored in the case of foreigners . In the latter context, linguists found alanning the pragmatic application of historical evidence. The volume also offers a facsimile reproduction of Sir Peter's original article as it appeared in MLR. Alan Deyermond's introduction to the collection locates Russell's article within the evolution of Spanish medieval studies, intriguingly speculating on Russell's motivations for pursuing such a line ofinquiry. Deyermond also provides a sketch of the history of the article's reception, chiefly in Spain and Britain. In turn, Russell's essay laments the reductive nature of the debate in which issues seem to be circumscribed to a single set of opposing views: neotradicionalismo and its "client offspring", individualismo. Furthermore , the standard scheme for parsing Cidian scholarship has led to the faulty gathering together into the same current of scholarship widely differing approaches to the Poema de Mio Cid. This was the case, for example , when Colin Smith proposed a historicist reading of the Poema, seeing it as self-contained entity that was the product of the intentionality of an author, while Ian Michael approached the work from an organicist perspective , dealing with the text within its concrete horizon of expectations while remaining faithful to its alterity. Three essays support and expand upon the implications of Russell's conclusion regarding a later date for the composition of the Poema. Juan La corónica 32.2 (Spring, 2004): 242-43 Reviews243 Carlos Bayo finds evidence supporting a late date by means of orthographic analysis and from evidence gathered from the colophon. At the same time, Bayo posits an earlier dating of the Vivar codex than hitherto proposed, linking it to a copy made during the reigns of Alfonso X or Sancho IV Jeremy Lawrance's essay concentrates on an unusual feature that supports a later date for the PMC: the use of "epic emotion", initially explored by both Deyennond and Michael, from the perspectives of Northrop Frye on heroic poetry. For Lawrance, the Poema is, in terms of genre, innovative rather than archaic. David Hook's essay extends prior work by himself and others on legal issues, calling attention to a wide range of expressions and matters of concern to legally-minded authors. While all three studies still retain a place for the poet's intentionality, Hook's and Lawrance's studies look further into the aesthetics of the Poema as a product of the convergence between the effects of its preoccupations and its reception. Louise M. Haywood's interesting contribution traces patterns of decline and recovery in the text from and through specific places, noting the use of Uminal and marginal spaces from an anthropological perspective. Also she focuses on the strategic uses of environment and toponyms from an organicist approach that considers aesthetic elements as parts of a whole, interactive system. Haywood concludes that landscapes and places were deliberately chosen to favor the development of parallels and ironic contrasts in the plot - and...

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