Literary Movements: Romanticism, Realism, and Naturalism
Literary Movements: Romanticism, Realism, Naturalism
Romanticism
- Sources: Late seventeenth-century Germany.
- Opposition to: The neoclassical concept.
- Romantic Human: Dissatisfaction with reality, a search for an alternate time-space, sadness. A very romantic end often involved suicide.
- Creative Act: Emphasized imagination and originality; the concept of the artist as a *genius*.
- Attraction to: The dark, mystery, chaos—everything opposed to reason.
- Customs: A step from the romantic toward realistic acting appeared during Romanticism.
Realism
- Sources: Europe in the mid-nineteenth century.
- Opposition to: Romanticism.
- New Concept of Literary Creation: An objective representation of reality.
- Importance of Contextualization: The world of industrial workers and revolution.
- Features: Methodical observation of reality, accurate and detailed description, non-intervention of feelings or emotions. The novel is presented in a critical and globalized sense.
Naturalism: The Evolution of Realism
- Characteristics: Knowledge based on data and facts, observation of reality, classification of phenomena, and determinative laws. Human behavior is subject to these bases: race and heredity, environment, and the historic moment.
- The novelist must cease being an observer to become an experimenter. The novel becomes a method to study human behavior.
Narcís Oller (1846–1930)
Oller’s training involved his uncle, who possessed a library, and the influence of his cousin, Josep Yxart, a literary critic. Narcís Oller reflected on novels and politics with his uncle. The Revolution of 1868 conditioned the author (as seen in Serrallonga).
Oller’s Realism:
- His approach was criticized as a method.
- Stages: First stage (La papallona), second stage (madness, fever, e.g., La bogeria).
- La bogeria reflects a rapid change in a short time. The plot stems from a real situation. The theme motivates the novel’s nature of reason. The process is an experience of personal madness. The thematic questioning addresses society’s reaction to the individual.
Neoclassicism
It imported balance, harmony, and austerity (contrary to the Baroque), emphasizing the simplicity of beauty. In literature, classical genres like drama and fables were used:
- The Theater: Stories were copied and rewritten with a different meaning.
- Fables: This was helpful literature. Neoclassicism sought utility in literature for illustration. A sentence could be more useful in achieving happiness than the light of intellect.
Genres: Fables in verse, drama (with rules), travel books, and the diary (a compilation of a person’s daily facts). Rafael Amat i de Cortada (Baron de Maldà) is considered an example of prose making based on journalistic chronicle.
The Renaixença (The Rebirth)
This was a movement of nationalist consciousness that arose and was promoted by the Catalan bourgeoisie to recover the prestige of the Catalan language and literature.
- Start Date: 1833, with the publication of Oda a la Pàtria by Bonaventura Carles Aribau. This included the flag of the rebirth: language identification (maternal) = Homeland.
- This poem was created in a biographical context due to a people’s need. Bonaventura Carles Aribau worked in Madrid as a banker and, feeling distant from Catalonia, wrote this poem to praise his language and land.
- 1859: The Floral Games were restored in Barcelona with a glamorous act, held annually until the Franco years (though foreign participants from France, Italy, etc., attended then).
- 1877: The year Jacint Verdaguer won a special prize for L’Atlàntida, marking a Catalan worship after 300 years of decline.
- Motto of the Renaixença (Represented by the Floral Games): Flower (love), hedge (homeland), viola (faith).
- Final Date: 1892, when Modernism began to emerge.
Periods within the Renaixença: Romanticism (Verdaguer and Lieder), Realism, Naturalism (Narcís Oller).