Catalan literature

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Catalan literature (or Valencian literature) is the name conventionally used to refer to literature written in the Catalan language. The focus of this article is not just the literature of Catalonia, but literature written in Catalan from anywhere, so that it includes writers from Andorra, the Valencian Community, Balearic Islands and other territories where any Catalan variant is spoken.

The Catalan literary tradition is extensive, starting in the early Middle Ages. A Romantic revivalist movement of the 19th century, Renaixença, classified Catalan literature in periods. The centuries long chapter known as Decadència that followed the golden age of Valencian literature, was perceived as extremely poor and lacking literary works of quality. Further attempts to explain why this happened (see History of Catalonia) have motivated new critical studies of the period, and nowadays a revalorisation of this early modern age is taking place. Catalan literature reemerged in the 19th and early 20th centuries, to experience troubled times from the start of the Spanish Civil War on. Many intellectuals were forced into exile and Catalan culture was repressed. However, this repression began to temper after the end of World War II. Catalan was repressed until Francisco Franco's death and the end of his dictatorship in 1975. Then, a development towards officiality and presence in schools and media started to this day.

Middle Ages

Origins

Catalan, a

Les quatre grans cròniques

These four major literary works are chronicles written between the 13th and 14th centuries narrating the deeds of the monarchs and leading figures of the Crown of Aragon. They are the following:

• Crònica de Jaume I
  , also known as "The book of deeds" (see External links)
• Crònica de Bernat Desclot
  , also known as "Book of the king, Peter of Aragon".
• Crònica de Ramon Muntaner
• Crònica de Pere el Cerimoniós [ca]

Lyric poetry

The first widespread vernacular writing in any Romance language was the

The early modern period (late 15th-18th centuries), while extremely productive for Castilian writers of the

The first Romantics in

Literary Catalan

The cultural and political movement known as

After what seemed to be a period of hope and rapid growth, the Spanish Civil War and the establishment of Francoist Spain (starting in 1939) forced many Catalan leftist intellectuals into exile, as many of them faced political persecution.

During the initial years of Francoist Spain the use of Catalan in the media became frowned upon. Publishing in Catalan never ceased completely, though, even though only a few notable authors like Salvador Espriu did publish in this language in the first years of Francoist Spain. Those initial political restrictions on publishing in Catalan relaxed over time. By the 1950s publishing in Catalan was no longer extraordinary; by the 1960s it had become possible without restrictions^[2] other than the ideological ones which applied to all of Spain.

Some literary awards in Catalan had been established as early as 1947 (Premi Joanot Martorell). Also by the end of the 1940s well known authors such as Josep Maria de Sagarra were publishing again in Catalan (among others, El prestigi dels morts, 1946, L'Hereu i la forastera, 1949). Many other literary awards followed, like the Premi Carles de la Riba (1950), the Victor Català (1953) or the Lletra d'Or (1956). Since 1951, the most remarkable literary contest in Catalonia at the time (the Premio Ciudad de Barcelona) accepted originals in Catalan.^[3]

In 1962, Mercè Rodoreda published The Time of the Doves, possibly the book which paved the way of modern Catalan literature, since it could enjoy wider recognition due to the new media and the spreading of literacy in this language. In 1963, Spain won an international song contest with a piece sung in Catalan.^[4]

Later on that decade Josep Pla published what has been considered the masterpiece of the contemporary literature in Catalan, the seminal El Quadern Gris (1966). The Catalan cultural association Òmnium Cultural, which had been established in 1961, could begin its work in favour of Catalan literature by 1967 onwards. Salvador Espriu, who had published most of his works in Catalan, was a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971.

After the transition to democracy (1975–1978) and the restoration of the Catalan regional government Generalitat (1980), literary life and the editorial market have returned to normality and literary production in Catalan is being bolstered with a number of language policies intended to protect Catalan culture. Besides the aforementioned authors, other relevant 20th-century writers of the Francoist and democracy periods include Joan Brossa, Agustí Bartra, Manuel de Pedrolo, Pere Calders or Quim Monzó, Jesús Moncada or, in 21st century, Jaume Cabré or Albert Sánchez Piñol. The number of twenty-first century women writers increases like Dolors Miquel, Núria Perpinyà or Irene Solà.

Lists of Catalan-language writers and poets

Notes

References

• Comas, Antoni. La decadència. Sant Cugat del Vallès: A. Romero, 1986.
• Elliott, J. H. Imperial Spain 1469-1716. London: Penguin, 2002.
• Riquer, Martí de
  . Història de la literatura catalana. 6 vols. Barcelona: Editorial Ariel, 1980.
• Rossich, Albert. "És valid avui el concepte de decadència de la cultura catalana de l'època moderna? Es pot identificar decadència amb castellanizació?" Manuscrits 15 (1997), 127-34.
• Terry, Arthur. A Companion to Catalan Literature. Woodbridge, Suffolk, U.K. / Rochester, N.Y.: Tamesis, 2003.
• Jad Hatem, Le temps dans la poésie catalane contemporaine, Paris, Éd. du Cygne, 2011

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Catalan-language literature.

General

• Catalan Poetry Selection (800 poems, 176 poets, 42 bios, 37 English versions)
• LletrA, Catalan Literature Online (Open University of Catalonia)
• Catalan literature at the British Library website
• Relazioni fra la cultura catalana e quella italiana

E-books

• James I the Conqueror's Chronicle (in English)
• Muntaner's Chronicle (in English)
• Tirant lo Blanc (in English)