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“Ez yeu am tal qu’es bo e belh” – Reyna de Mallorques
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CATALÀ ENGLISH ESPAÑOL ITALIANO
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With the exception of a long and difficult period of scarce literature from the end of the fifteenth century to the end of the nineteenth, Catalan letters have followed a course roughly parallel to the literatures of other Western European countries: early historical treatises and lyric poetry for the Middle Ages, developing into a flourish of prose and poetry in the fifteenth century. After the period know as the “Decadence,” which scholars are now hoping to reclassify in recognition of a continuing tradition of popular verse, a new Renaixença took root in the last third of the nineteenth century, first in poetry and later in the narrative. Since the brutal interruption of the Franco regime from 1939 to 1975, Catalan literature has maintained its strength in our day.
The very beginnings, then, are found in the work of the troubadours who wrote in Provençal, closely related to Catalan; their poetry thrived between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, for example the Reyna de Mallorques. Alongside them arose the Majorcan Doctor Il·luminat Ramon Llull, one of the giants of European medieval literature, who wrote poetry in addition to philosophical treatises, mystical confessions and novels in several languages. The Italian Renaissance arrived very early in Catalonia and Valencia, this latter region having produced the sublime poetry of Ausias March, the first to write in current Catalan and not a stylized Provençal. This great poet of love and death had enormous importance for Castilian Renaissance poets such as Garcilaso de la Vega, Gutierre de Cetina, and others. Even during the long period of little production in Catalan literature, Pere Serafí produced a solid body of poetry in the early sixteenth century.
The modern flourishing of Catalan literature began with Romanticism and the writing of a patriotic poem by Bonaventura Carles Aribau, “La pàtria,” in which he praised his land and language, encouraging people to use Catalan instead of Castilian in their compositions. Two outstanding poets to follow him are Jacint Verdaguer, a priest who fell out of favor with the church hierarchy, and Joan Maragall, a clear-sighted critic of the Modernist movement. In Majorca, Joan Alcover and Maria-Antònia Salvà were writing in similar vein, and Caterina Albert, a towering figure in prose, also wrote poetry in her youth from the Costa Brava.
The beginning of the twentieth century sees still more activity among myriad poets, influenced by the colonial losses in 1898 and its effects on the Catalan economy, labor strife, and alienation from the central government. Josep Carner becomes a leading figure in noucentisme, the most stylized branch of modernism, in which there is a striving for a break with existing traditions, particularly the rusticity of earlier work. This strengthening of language and literature continues until the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath, when Catalan culture in all aspects is severely curtailed during the long dictatorship. Mercè Rodoreda did most of her writing from exile in Geneva, and said that writing away from speakers of your language is as difficult as growing flowers at the North Pole. Best known for her fiction, she wrote poetry as well. Many writers continue their work, but publication is difficult, and a new flowering of letters occurs after Franco’s death in 1975. Many trends nourish literature in all its forms with intellectuals returning from exile, a strong cultural community, and a commitment to publish in Catalan among authors of all ages. People born toward the end of the twentieth century continue writing not only their own compositions but also studies of previous writers, whose work was neglected or suppressed previously.