Catalan Language and Literature: Key Figures & Works
Biographical Sketches
Her interest in folk culture and language led Joan Alcover to collect stray reuben in 24 volumes, written in dialect. Gathering these meant inventorying a large number of dialect words. He quit the idea of a dictionary and collected materials first-hand, questioning people all over the linguistic domain.
He organized a corps of correspondents in different regions and secretaries to organize the collected materials in order to produce a dictionary of the language. This would bring together the ancient language with modern literary and dialectical forms.
To gain sympathies with the Islands and Valencia, it was renamed in dictionaries. the tongue. cat. of the dictionaries. Catalan-Valencian-Balear.
Francesc de Borja Moll was called their maximum organizer and editor.
The first volume was published during Alcover’s life. When he died, the responsibility for the dictionaries was taken up by Borja Moll, who was commissioned to continue the work.
Pompeu Fabra
He was a Professor of Chemistry but felt a strong inclination towards philology. The IEC (Institut d’Estudis Catalans) appointed him the task of standardizing the language. With help from collaborators, he created spelling standards, the Catalan Grammar, and the Dictionary of the General Tongue.
The criteria of the reform were:
- Respect for the etymology and knowledge of the laws of language evolution.
- Respect for the medieval literary tradition.
- The actual pronunciation of dialects.
- Harmony with other European languages.
Fabra systematized their work in stages:
Spell-encoding / Grammar-The systematization / The fixing of the lexicon / The explanation, through the publication of works, of its criteria.
Jacint Verdaguer (1845-1902)
(Second half of XIX Century)
This author represents the consolidation of Renaixença poetry and is considered the creator of modern Catalan literature. While others alternated between Spanish and Catalan in their works, Verdaguer wrote all his work in Catalan.
Born into a farming family, he entered the seminary to begin clerical studies and began to familiarize himself with European and Greco-Latin culture. He studied with enthusiasm for peasant and popular culture of his own rural area (tales, legends…).
He was diagnosed with a disease and advised to breathe the sea air. He embarked on a ship as a chaplain en route to Cuba and had the opportunity to be in direct contact with the stage of the work that won a prize in the Floral Games, Atlantis.
He traveled to Europe and made numerous excursions into the Pyrenees. After a trip to the Holy Land, Verdaguer again shocked faces and ecclesiastical authorities, which caused the bishop to withdraw his license to say mass. He died of tuberculosis, and his funeral was crowded.
An exceptional prose writer, he stands out as a poet. His poetry grew from two themes: God and Catalonia. Intimate description of nature predominates.
Epic Poetry
Atlantis
Considered the first masterpiece of the Renaissance and Romanticism. A long epic poem that tells the legendary disappearance of this continent. It consists of an introduction, ten songs, and a conclusion.
Canigó
An epic poem, it is considered the best work of Renaissance poetry. The work shows the clash of two worlds: paganism (the fairies) and religious (monks and the counts) in a particular period, the Middle Ages, and also shows the victory of Christianity over the Muslim religion. It used popular medieval Catalan legends mixed with folk and historical elements. The main topic is the origin of Catalonia, and the real protagonist of the poem is nature, described with rich details. Gentil is the central character who symbolizes the romantic hero.
Lyric Poetry
Also characterized by religious and nationalist sentiment.
Prose
Three thematic areas: Travel Books / Newspaper Articles / Folk Narratives