The Catalan language is a branch of peninsular rather than of southern Gallo-Romance. It shows, nonetheless, many traces of kinship with Provençal, and the literature in its origins used the Occitan language (langue dâoc, the dialects of Old French spoken south of the Loire River) and the poetic forms cultivated by troubadours north of the Pyrenees.
Medieval period
Poetry
The early Catalan troubadours Guillem de BergadĂ , Hug de Mataplana, Guillem de Cervera, and others were genuine Provençal poets. About 100 years later, in the late 14th century, Provençal influence apparently lessened, and poets turned to northern France for inspiration. They took over the long French narratives on romance themes such as the Arthurian cycle and used the noves rimades metre, a sequence of octosyllabic rhymed couplets. Several poets working in this tradition carried the new interest in the langue dâoĂŻl (the dialects of Old French spoken north of the Loire) to the extent of incorporating passages of French poetry in their poems.
The great period of Catalan poetry was the 15th century, after John I of Aragon had established in 1393 a poetic academy in Barcelona on the model of the academy in Toulouse with jocs florals (âfloral games,â or poetry congresses), including literary competitions. This royal encouragement continued under Martin I and Ferdinand I and helped to emancipate the literary style from foreign influences. As the century advanced, Valencia emerged as a new focus of literary activity: a school of poetry developing there was noted for its characteristic use of eight-line decasyllabic verses with crossed, or âchained,â rhymes and final four-line refrain, illustrating a turning away from French models and a new inspiration from Italy. The cants dâamor and cants de mort (âsongs of loveâ and âsongs of deathâ) by AusiĂ s March contained the finest verses ever written in Catalan, exerted influence in 16th-century Castile, and continue to influence modern Catalan poets. Jaume Roigâs Lo spill o llibre de les dones (c. 1460; âThe Mirror or Book of Womenâ) was very differentâa caustic satire on woman, written in more than 16,000 four-syllable lines, portraying contemporary Valencian life vividly. Johan Roiç de Corella, a Valencian lyricist, was perhaps the best representative of the Renaissance.
After the union of Aragon with Castile, the Castilian language predominated throughout Spain, spelling a long eclipse of Catalan literature. Nevertheless, Juan BoscĂĄn AlmogĂĄver inaugurated a new Castilian school of poetry, and Castilians regard him as a landmark in the history of their Renaissance; by the time BoscĂĄnâs works were published (1543), Catalan poetry had been dead for 50 years.
Prose
Though the oldest document (the text of an oath by a bishop of Urgel) dates from c. 1100, literary prose did not begin until the end of the 13th century. It was written in the everyday speech found in charters from the time of James Iâs accession to the Aragonese throne in 1213; four great chronicles that survive represent the peak of medieval Catalan prose. The anonymous Llibre dels feyts del rey en Jacme (âBook of the Deeds of King Jamesâ), compiled after James Iâs death in 1276, and Ramon Muntanerâs account of the Grand Catalan Companyâs expedition to the Morea in southern Greece and of James IIâs conquest of Sardinia were distinguished by skill of narration and quality of language. Bernat Desclotâs chronicle deals with the reign of Peter I the Great; though the account of Peter IV the Ceremonious is ascribed to Bernat Desclot, it was planned and revised by the King himself.
Ramon Llull was unequaled in his encyclopaedic production, in Catalan, Arabic, and Latin, covering every branch of medieval knowledge and thought. His exhaustive theological treatise Llibre de contemplaciĂł en DĂ©u (c. 1272; âBook of the Contemplation of Godâ) began Cataloniaâs golden age of literature, providing incidentally a mine of information on contemporary society. The Llibre dâEvast e Blanquerna (c. 1284; Blanquerna; a Thirteenth Century Romance) founded Catalan fiction. It included the Llibre dâamic e amat (Book of the Lover and the Beloved), a masterpiece of mysticism, while his FĂšlix (c. 1288) and Llibre de lâorde de cauaylerĂa (between 1275 and 1281; The Book of the Order of Chivalry) were instructive works in a narrative framework.
Bernat Metge began the âclassical ageâ by translating Boccaccioâs story of Griselda from Petrarchâs Latin version and, clothing his scholastic learning with poetic imagination, achieved the stylistic masterpiece of Catalan prose. The chivalric romance Tirant lo Blanc (c. 1460) by Joanot Martorell was notable of its kind for the theme, drawn from Muntaner, of the real adventures of the Catalans in the Middle East. The anonymous late 14th-century Curial e GĂŒelfa draws on Desclot and is the only other Catalan romance in this vein.
The beginnings of drama were represented by a 15th-century Assumption play, Misteri dâElch, which is still performed annually at Elche on the Feast of the Assumption.
Decline: 16thâ18th century
With the loss of political independence, literary and linguistic independence was also lost, and Catalan fell to the level of a patois, kept alive only in the countryside and in the pulpit. The 16th century furnishes a single poet worthy of the name: Pere SerafĂ, some of whose Cants dâamor (1565), written in imitation of AusiĂ s March but less obscure, are graceful enough to merit remembrance. In prose, only scholars, chiefly antiquaries and historians, still wrote in Catalan. Forty years of research and abundant documentation give interest to the CrĂČnica universal del principat de Cathalunya, a history of the Catalan kingdom, of Jeroni Pujadas, of which only the first part (1609) is in Catalan. Thereafter, the eclipse was almost complete. Catalan remained only as the language of folk song and ballad; in theseâfirst collected in the Romancerillo catalĂĄn (1853; âLittle Collection of Catalan Balladsâ) by Manuel MilĂ i Fontanals, the historian who played a considerable part in the Catalan revivalâit lived on until the reawakening.
The Renaixensa and after
In 1814 appeared the GramĂĄtica y apologia de la llengua cathalana (âGrammar and Apology of the Catalan Languageâ) of Josep Pau Ballot i Torres, a forerunner of the literary and linguistic renascence (Renaixensa) that marked the Romantic period in Catalonia. The pioneers, however, saw the inadequacies of the ancient language for the expression of spiritual and intellectual ideas. The Institut dâEstudis Catalans, founded in Barcelona in 1907, has played a notable part in the deliberate enrichment and purifying of Catalan as a vehicle for contemporary thought.
Bonaventura Carles Aribauâs patriotic Oda a la pĂĄtria (1832; âOde to the Fatherlandâ) and the poems of Joaquim RubiĂł i Ors and Victor Balaguer prepared the way for the mysticism of JacintĂł Verdaguer SantalĂł, a great epic poet (LâAtlĂĄntida [1877], CanigĂł [1886]). Miguel Costa i Llobera cultivated a classical perfection of form. In Joan Maragall i Gorina, Catalonia found its first great modern poet who, in spiritual quality, exerted a powerful influence on later poets.
The foundations of modern Catalan prose were laid by the critical writings of RubiĂł i Ors, Francisco Pi i Margall, one of the four presidents of the Spanish Republic of 1873, and Josep Torras i Bages (La tradiciĂł catalana [1892; âThe Catalan Traditionâ]). One of the best and most influential writers in prose was the essayist Eugenio dâOrs (pseudonym âXeniusâ), whose philosophical novel La ben plantada (1911; âFirmly Rootedâ) was one of the most notable works in modern Catalan literature.
Catalan dramatists have produced plays of considerable originality. Ăngel GuimerĂ achieved a European reputation with Terra baixa (1896; âLowlandsâ), which inspired a German and a French opera and was widely translated. The many social dramas of Ignasi IglĂ©sias, inspired by the early works of Gerhart Hauptmann, included one near-masterpiece, Els Vells (1903). AdriĂ Gual, author of several works of fantasy, did his best work as director of the Teatre Intim, founded in Barcelona in 1898, which familiarized the public with the great drama of all countries and ages.
Further development of modern Catalan literature was delayed by the dictatorship (1923â30) of Miguel Primo de Rivera, who banned the use of any language other than Castilian, and by the Civil War of 1936â39. Many Catalan men of letters fled abroad, and those who remained found the political climate hardly conducive to productive literary activity.
Conditions in Catalonia improved only slightly during the postwar years as the government of Gen. Francisco Franco adopted a generally repressive policy toward Catalan culture. Although some Catalan writers chose to ignore the prevailing realities and cultivated what could be construed as a literature of artistic escape, the most influential poets of the period, Salvador Espriu and Pere Quart (pseudonym of Joan Oliver), began writing poetry that dealt with social issues in a decidedly Realistic mode. Other recent Catalan authors of note, such as the prose writers MercĂš Rodoreda and Josep Maria EspinĂ s, also have largely grounded their works in contemporary social life.