La Decadència

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The

Siglo de Oro, has been termed La Decadència (Catalan pronunciation: [lə ðəkəˈðɛnsiə]; "The Decadence"), an era of decadence in Catalan literature and history, generally thought to be caused by a general falling into disuse of the vernacular language in cultural contexts and lack of patronage among the nobility, even in lands of the Crown of Aragon. This decadence is thought to accompany the general Castilianization of Spain and overall neglect of the Crown of Aragon's institutions after the dynastic union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon that resulted from the marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile
, a union finalized in 1474.

This is, however, a Romantic view made popular by writers and thinkers of the national awakening period known as Renaixença, in the 19th century. This presumed state of decadence is being contested with the appearance of recent cultural and literary studies showing there were indeed works of note in the period.

Historical context

Historically, the decadent period refers to the decline of the thriving commercial

Habsburg dynasties. What this signified was that the thriving bourgeoisie
and commerce of the Crown of Aragon became subject to the increasingly inward-looking and absolutist policies that characterized Castile (Elliott 34). The Catalan-Aragonese empire declined for several reasons: the outbreaks of the black plague in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that decimated the population; banking failures led to increased Italian involvement and loss of Mediterranean market share; the textile trade foundered; and, most importantly, the civil war of 1462-72 left the Crown of Aragon "a war-torn country, shorn of two of its richest provinces [Cerdanya and Roussillon], and its problems all unsolved" (Elliott 37–41). In other words, the decadence of the Crown of Aragon led directly to the ascendance of Castile and the Habsburg empire. During the time of the literary production of the Catalan baroque (approx. 1600–1740), it is important to note the growing opposition to the Habsburg monarchy and its
Francesc Vicenç Garcia and Josep Romaguera
wished to revitalize Catalan literary language by importing forms taken from the Castilian Baroque.

Criticism

The ‘Decadència,’ however, refers to a period that is too conveniently capacious, as evidenced by Antoni Comas’ definition: "We call the period between the 15th-18th centuries the 'Decadence' in the field of Catalan literature or culture...it seems a dead period, but at the core is more lethargic than anything else" (La decadència 15) [translation]. Moreover, the most available English text on the subject is quite discouraging: Arthur Terry's A Companion to Catalan Literature devotes fifty-two pages to

Martí de Riquer and Joaquim Molas (1964–88) to Terry (2003). Many literary historians are more interested in medieval or modern authors, starting from the nineteenth-century movement known as the Renaixença that led to the movements known as noucentisme and modernisme (see below). However, what these authors and recent critics have prized most in Catalan literature is, naturally, its autochthonous qualities or "catalanness"; in other words, either the folkloric or innovative nature of this literary production. By contrast, baroque
Catalan literature is imitative, not innovative. Moreover, Catalan baroque literature, so influenced and infiltrated by Castilian, blurs linguistic boundaries and cannot support absolutist nation-building projects based on differentiation, political, literary or linguistic exceptionalism important to nineteenth-century thinkers in a way that modern or medieval literature could.

A new generation of scholars began to revise the prevailing views of early modern Catalan literature, even deliberately refusing to employ the term ‘Decadència’ in order to highlight its debilitating and contentious nature. Albert Rossich's article, "És valid avui el concepte de decadència de la cultura catalana a l’època moderna?" [Is the concept of the decadence of Catalan culture in the modern period valid today?], critically reexamines the so-called "Decadència" and concludes that it results from critics' own presuppositions. As a reconstructed fiction, "per provar que hi va haver una decadència cultural i literària hi ha d’haver ganes de veure-ho així" (128) [to prove that there was a cultural and literary decadence there must be a desire to see it so]. Another problem Rossich associates with traditional literary history and criticism is the basis of the appellation ‘decadence’ on the supposed lack of imaginative literature alone, eliminating from the analysis not only scientific and linguistic texts but also literature by Catalans in other languages. Moreover, for Rossich we err by eliding

Valencian poet Ausiàs March, a known influence on Castilian authors writing in Castilian such as Juan Boscán and Garcilaso de la Vega
. Perhaps the worst problem with the narrative of the ‘Decadència’ is that it discourages people from studying the period to which it refers. The "decadence" of Catalan literature in the early modern period, therefore, depends on one's presuppositions and point of view. The "decadent" aspect of this period is in part a construction of the writers and critics of the Renaixença that aims at establishing a clear difference between the movements.

Authors and works

Important authors writing in Catalan during the early modern period include

Tirant lo Blanc by Joanot Martorell (1490) was specifically mentioned as the best chivalric romance by Miguel de Cervantes, in his Don Quixote (Part 1:1605, Part 2:1615), which had quite an influence on writers of the period. Other works of the early modern period include popular poetry such as goigs and broadside ballads
.

See also

References

  • Elliott, J.H. The Revolt of the Catalans: A Study in the Decline of Spain. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1963.

External links

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