Catalan Literature: Decline, Renaissance, Baroque & Neoclassicism
XII-XV Century (Decline)
Status: Decline
Movements:
- XVI Renaissance (Peter Serafí)
- XVII Baroque (Chancellor of Valley Stoves)
- XVIII Neoclassicism, Enlightenment (Baron Maldà)
The decline represents a drop in the quality and quantity of works in Catalan. A key event was the death of Martin l’Humà without children, leading to a succession issue between Ferdinand and James d’Urgell of Antequera. Ferdinand d’Antequera was chosen. The presence of poets like Sant Vicens Ferrer led to the Castilianization
Read More19th Century Literature: Romanticism, Realism, and Modernism
Nineteenth Century: A Literary Overview
The 19th century was a period of significant political, social, and economic change. The first half of the century saw the rise of Romanticism and Realism.
Romanticism
Romanticism emphasized sentiments and imagination over neoclassical reason. It was prominent in poetry and drama, but also influenced art, journalism, and historical novels.
Realism
The second half of the century witnessed Posromanticismo, a more intimate form of expression. Realism shifted from
Read MoreEarly English Novels: Defoe, Swift, Richardson, Fielding, Smollett
The Rise of the English Novel
Ian Watt, in ‘The Rise of the Novel’, discusses the challenges people faced in accessing literature before the 17th and 18th centuries. These challenges included limited literacy and economic constraints. Throughout the 17th century, there was a growing importance of merchants and tradesmen, and the entertainment of the middle classes became a legitimate objective of literature. The full emergence of the novel in the 18th century was a product of the middle class
Read MoreSpanish Literature, Theater, and Poetry Since 1975
Postmodernism in Spanish Literature
Due to the political and social changes of the 1980s, postmodern thought emerged. It is characterized by the rejection of ideologies and aesthetic theories, and the practice of mixing languages from different disciplines, such as literature and cinema. Postmodernists defend popular culture and the hybridization of styles. Postmodern thought is reflected in everything, from the taste for the fusion of genres, to how the author plays with references known to the
Read MoreLanguage Evolution: A History of Change
Sound Change: Prothesis
One other type of sound change worth noting, though not found in English, occurs in the development of other languages. It involves the addition of a sound to the beginning of a word and is called prothesis. It is a common feature in the evolution of some forms from Latin to Spanish, as in these examples:
- schola → escuela (“school”)
- spiritus → espı́ritu (“spirit”)
Spanish speakers learning English as a second language sometimes use a prothetic vowel, making words like strange
Catalan Chronicles: Epic Tales and Royal History
It is common for nations to have an epic, the story of their heroic deeds and glories. Though the Soviets enjoyed iconic heroes, real or imaginary, especially from the time they acquired a sense of national community, these contributed to reinforcing the same stories. Texts are not preserved in epic verse in Catalan songs of feat, which does not mean they did not exist but were lost, as evidenced by the fact that occasionally some fragments appear known as quatre grans cròniques.