"Gesta" redirects here. For the skipper butterfly genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

, see Gesta (butterfly).

A cantar de gesta is the Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 equivalent of the Old French

Old French

Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...

 medieval chanson de geste

Chanson de geste

The chansons de geste, Old French for "songs of heroic deeds", are the epic poems that appear at the dawn of French literature. The earliest known examples date from the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, nearly a hundred years before the emergence of the lyric poetry of the trouvères and...

or "songs of heroic deeds".

The most important cantares de gesta of Castile were:

• The Cantar de Mio Cid
  Cantar de Mio Cid
  El Cantar de Myo Çid , also known in English as The Lay of the Cid and The Poem of the Cid is the oldest preserved Spanish epic poem...
  
  , where the triumph of the true nobility, founded on effort, merit and optimism is narrated, as opposed to the blood nobility that the Infantes of Carrión represent.
• The Poema de Fernán González
  Poema de Fernán González
  The Poema de Fernán González is a Castilian epic poem, specifically, a cantar de gesta of the Mester de Clerecía. Composed in a metre called the cuaderna vía, it narrates the deeds of the historical Count of Castile, Fernán González. It was written between 1250 and 1266 by a monk of San Pedro de...
  
  , which presents a mix of history and legend concerning the first Count of Castile, Fernán González.
• The Cantar de los Siete Infantes de Lara, where a right revenge long delayed is narrated.
• The Cantar de Bernardo del Carpio, that narrates the tragic history of a bastard of noble origin because of releasing his father, Count of Saldaña, jailed for having generated him from a real princess; in his efforts to rehabilitate the family honor, he is unfairly treated by his king Alfonso the Chaste.
• The Mocedades de Rodrigo
  Mocedades de Rodrigo
  The Mocedades de Rodrigo is the name given to a late, anonymous Castilian cantar de gesta, composed around 1360, that relates the origins and exploits of the youth of the legendary hero El Cid ....
  
  composed around 1360 is the latest epic cantar épico that is conserved. It is based on an earlier cantar of the youth of Rodrigo that dates from the second half of the 13th century. It narrates events in the youth of El Cid.

Smaller importance had the Mainete, the Cantar del Cerco de Zamora and others. However, only the Cantar de Mio Cid, the Cantar de Rodrigo and a few verses of the Cantar de Roncesvalles have been preserved in written form. The philologues have reconstructed other passages of the lost Castilian epic from poorly prosificated fragments in chronicles, where they served as sources of information.

The characteristics of the Spanish cantares de gesta are:

• Irregular verses, mainly between 14 and 16 syllables, divided in two hemistiches and with assonant rhyme
  Assonance
  Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phrases or sentences, and together with alliteration and consonance serves as one of the building blocks of verse. For example, in the phrase "Do you like blue?", the is repeated within the sentence and is...
  
  , as opposed to regular verses and consonant rhyme of French cantares de gesta.
• Predominance of the realism and the historicity as opposed to the more legendary and less historical character of French cantares de gesta.
• Use of expressions that demand the attention of the public.
• Very abundant verbs, because the action predominates.
• Suppression of formulas that introduce the direct dialogue with the purpose of making the narration more agile, perhaps because some passages of Spanish cantares de gesta were semi-represented (thereof also its greater realism).
• Use of brief descriptions, full of plasticity.
• Use of epic names to characterize the personages and to give time to the memory of the reciter.
• Use of the paragogic e.