Noucentisme and Josep Carner’s Poetry
Josep Carner (1884-1970)
Born in Barcelona in 1884, Josep Carner graduated in Philosophy and Letters at the age of 20. His published works include poetry, prose, drama, and translations. His literary debut in 1906 marked the beginning of a new cultural movement. He participated in cultural activities related to the Noucentisme movement and collaborated in the cultural program of Prat de la Riva, who appointed him Secretary of the Philological Section of the Institute of Catalan Studies in 1911. Despite his constant struggle for the professionalization of writing, he never achieved the financial stability his family desired. In 1922, with the creation of a new political party, Acció Catalana, he separated from Prat de la Riva’s Lliga Regionalista. His loyalty to the Republic led him into exile for the rest of his life. After the fall of the Republic in March 1939, he moved to Belgium, where he was part of the Republican government in exile until 1948. In 1962, he was a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. In 1970, Carner made his last visit to Catalonia. Two months later, he died in Brussels.
Noucentisme
Noucentisme aligned with the interests and aspirations of the Catalan bourgeoisie, bringing together intellectuals and artists to move beyond Modernisme. Its formative period took place during Modernisme: the desire to transform Catalan culture into a European culture, language reform, etc. These aspects were influenced by traditional Catalan politics and religious Catholicism. Prat de la Riva, from Catalan nationalist and Catholic circles, as head of the Lliga Regionalista, a party representing the interests of the conservative Catalan bourgeoisie, proposed creating a climate of civic and cultural education, order, and normality. He included influential figures such as Pompeu Fabra (grammar) and Eugeni d’Ors and Josep Carner (literature). Between 1917 and 1920, serious social conflicts arose between unions and employers. The October 1917 Russian Revolution, terrorism, and conflict between intellectuals and politicians led to the Primo de Rivera dictatorship in 1923.
Eugeni d’Ors
Eugeni d’Ors was the theorist of Noucentisme, as expressed in his work Glosari.
Characteristics of Noucentisme:
- Imperialism: It sought the intervention of Catalan politics in the Spanish government. Catalonia was in a unique situation compared to the rest of the state, as a result of industrial progress and economic growth. The project aimed to overcome class conflicts.
- Arbitrarisme: It represents the exercise of will as a transformative force of reality. It emphasized the idealization of reality, the absence of individual feelings and implications, and a strict format and standard taste.
- Civility: The city is the center of culture, and Barcelona is the ideal Noucentista city. The city of civilization and progress is part of the bourgeois class. The ideal city is educated, active, rich, and solid.
- Classicism: Noucentisme has a worldview based on classical serenity, measure, and reason. All this will be projected in forms of education, harmony, and coexistence. A key element is irony, a sign of civilization, culture, and intelligence.
Noucentista Poetry
Poetry is the quintessential Noucentista literary genre. This is explained by:
- Rejection of the realist, naturalist, and especially modernist novel.
- Desire for perfection.
- Catalonia will be shown as perfect.
- Concern for language and language reform.
Referents of Noucentista Poetry:
- Modernisme
- 19th-century French poets
- The Mallorcan School
Carner, the Noucentista Poet
Carner’s poetics is defined by its dacissisme, understood as a rejection of Romanticism, the self as the center of the poem, elevated speech, and inspiration.
Measure and standards are the basis of the poem. In Carner’s poetry, there is no despair, no drama, no tragedy. A sweet melancholy and lucid irony characterize it. His mastery of language led him to introduce neologisms, archaisms, vernacularisms, and colloquialisms, achieving a dignified and flexible language. His loyalty to the Catalan language was preserved despite his exile.
He retrieved classical forms such as the sonnet and showed interest in rhetoric, but neither baroque nor artificial: irony, measure, and wisdom prevent it. The poet chooses everyday life, the reality of his space and time. His poems create a friendly, non-conflicting, ancient, and stylized reality.
Els fruits saborosos
The poem presents a stylized romance with characters with Greek names inserted in a colorful natural setting. The poems, in a classical and friendly genre, highlight nature, measure, elegance, and the poet’s approach to the human condition. This vision presents childhood, youth, maturity, and old age as the central stages of life, leading to a sweet and calm reflection on the passage of time. The different ages of life highlight the positive aspects found in each. The poems are all a generous acceptance of taste and the pleasure of seeing the world and life.
All this is depicted in scenes from insignificant daily life, but always within a stylized world, ordered in a serene, beautiful, and harmonious way.
The Greek names promote detachment from reality and are part of an idyllic nature that is a locus amoenus. It is a kind, generous, and even humanized nature through personifications. It is clearly a Mediterranean landscape. The fruits are related to human life and are symbols in which there are two cycles: the character and the fruits that accompany each one. Each fruit belongs to the season that relates to the character’s time of life. The characters are mostly women and children. The children enjoy the small pleasures of nature, and the women are related to the domestic sphere.
Regarding the metric, Alexandrine verses abound. Finally, Carner is objective; his feelings are not involved. The work exudes a serene acceptance of the human condition, the defense of the simple happiness of life, a happiness that has its limitations in paradise, order, purity, and simple and friendly beauty.