Reviews

“Montgomery’s opus represents an important point of reference for the study of Hispanic epic. Not only does it reaffirm many worthy ideas about employment of myth in epic but it serves up new insights on the linguistic expressiveness of epic in its ritual aspect, illuminating the text and the process by which its author links it to its universe of letters and himself to his listener.”—Jesus D. Rodriguez Velasco The Medieval Review (TMR)

“Over the past two decades, Thomas Montgomery has been steadily providing us with a series of outstandingly innovative and perceptive articles on the medieval Spanish epic. This book is the culmination of this work. . . . Montgomery's presentation is eminently learned and eminently convincing. It puts the Old Spanish epic in a totally new perspective and brings to bear new and startling evidence, which will oblige critics to take into account the genre's ancient, multi-secular origins. For its consistent and authoritative control of both literary and linguistic theory and their application to the Old Spanish texts, Montgomery's work ranks among the very best studies I have been privileged to read on the medieval epic.”—Samuel G. Armistead, University of California, Davis