Ausiàs March and Catalan Literature: Realism and Popular Traditions
Ausiàs March: Life and Works
Ausiàs March was born in Gandia in 1400 and died in Valencia in 1459. The son of a family of poets and knights, he served Alfonso the Magnanimous, who appointed him royal falconer. He married twice and had natural children. March’s poetry breaks with the tradition of troubadour poetry, comprising 128 poems that express his feelings. Man and poet are the same, appearing with all virtues and flaws, doubts and certainties, speaking about obsessions: love, relationships between man and God, death, and ethical problems.
Themes in March’s Poetry
March’s work can be structured by themes and tone into different blocks:
- Love Songs: The central theme is love. Ausiàs March talks about women, individual women, identical in strength and weakness to any human being. They are real women, facing love with intelligence. The love songs are organized around five senhal of troubadour survival: full of wisdom, lily among thorns, O foolish love, love, and my last either.
- Moral Songs: Poems based on the philosophical tradition of Aristotle and St. Thomas that lead to the analysis of feelings and contradictions.
- Death Chants: Six long poems written in old age, addressing death and the poet’s voice personally, as a release of pain from losing the ability to love and a foreword to two unknowns: the fate of the beloved woman in the afterlife and God’s justice.
Realist Poetry After Carles Riba
After the death of Carles Riba in 1960, three works of poetry marked a turn toward realism:
- Paid Holidays by Pere Quart
- The Skin of Bull by Salvador Espriu
- Da Nuces Pueris by Gabriel Ferrater
All three indicated a new way to understand poetry: expression of everyday reality using narrative techniques and more accessible language.
Vicent Andrés Estellés: A Realistic Voice
Vicent Andrés Estellés (1924-1993) was revealed by City in your ear, a realistic tone that continued with The Book of Wonders and Mural of Valencia, an ambitious work published posthumously that outlines the different geographies and characters of the country. Also highlighted are his works dedicated to love and vitalism: Donzell Bitter, The Great Fire of Garbons, and Horacianes.
Popular Literature in Catalan
Popular literature encompasses texts intended for oral delivery to a listener. The first examples of popular literature in Catalan date back to the 12th century, although they have not survived. Those that have been preserved can be grouped by genre:
Genres of Popular Literature
- Most Plays: Preserved religious subjects born following the celebrations of Christmas and Easter. The genre is represented by the profane farce, which initially took the name of comedy sketches. These brief dramatic pieces, written in verse or in prose and verse, were represented as a complement to longer works, describing the habits of humble classes.
- Poetry from the 16th Century: Conveyed through a variety of genres, and except for the joys, published in flyers, was transmitted orally. The Joys songs were dedicated to saints or venerated marededéus in parishes. The carols are also religious songs of medieval provenance. Regarding secular compositions:
- Songs and Tambourine Corrandes: 4 verses of seven syllables, with varied topics.
- Romances: Composed of seven syllables, was the most cultivated poetic genre from the fifteenth century and was transmitted orally until Mariano Aguilo and Manuel Milan put him in writing in the second half of the 19th century. Catalan romance has three roots:
- The French or Provencal.
- The Spanish.
- The Catalan (Count Arnau)
- Prose Narratives: Some were also transmitted orally, such as tales and legends, religious, heroic, or fantasy, which were used by educated writers.