Catalan Literature: History, Movements, and Key Authors
Catalan Literature: A Historical Overview
Prose:
- Religious and Moral: Ramon Llull laid the foundation for Catalan prose maturity. Eiximenis Francis and St. Vincent Ferrer promoted Christian doctrine.
- Narrative History: Chroniclers like James I, Peter of Aragon, Bernard Desclot, and Ramon Muntaner wrote historiographic tales defending Catalan kings’ policies.
- Moral and Philosophical Prose: Bernat Metge debated classic works on topics like the immortality of the soul and love.
- Chivalric Novel: Curial e
Understanding Literature: Definition, Functions, and Evolution
Understanding the Nature of the Literary Phenomenon
Literature is a phenomenon that is difficult to define, since the field of literature includes texts of great variety. Literature is an art form whose raw material is the units of language, which the writer manipulates to produce an aesthetic and emotional effect on the receiver. The two defining elements of the literary phenomenon are the creation of a fictional world and the use of language in a special way. The term fiction designates the peculiar
Read MoreGothic Literature: Origins, Themes, and Key Novels
Narrative provides order, meaning, and a metaphoric map in time, with a beginning, middle, and end, guiding us.
Gothic Romance: Origins and Evolution
GOTHIC The gothic romance emerged in England shortly after the novel form itself. Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764) reacted against the limitations of early novels. The novel of manners and didactic sensibility were exposed to the unconscious. Sensibility was under pressure. Sexuality, elemental passions, and fear moved to the center. The
15th Century Novel Trends: Idealistic and Realistic
15th Century Novel Trends
Idealistic Trends
- Cavalry Novel:
- Sentimental novel.
- New genres like pastoral novel (inspired by Virgil, love stories among pastoralists).
- Moorish novel (exalting the Moor’s nobility and sentiment).
- Byzantine novel (imitating Heliodorus, adventures of a couple in love, with trips, kidnappings, shipwrecks, and happy endings).
- Idealistic Cavalry Book:
- Preferred reading of the court.
- Presented as a translation of a story written in a strange language.
- Novela de Caballería: set in the
Humanism in Modern Literature: Renaissance to Enlightenment
Humanism’s Influence on Modern Literature
Renaissance, Baroque, and Enlightenment
Modern literature encompasses three significant periods: the Renaissance, the Baroque, and the Enlightenment. When adhering to compositional rules, literature conforms to rhetorical patterns.
The central theme throughout this entire period is Humanism. It is a crucial element in modern consciousness, both personal and social, that solidified from the early 15th to the early 19th century. This term defines the Modern Age,
Read MoreRomanticism in Spain: Literature, Prose, Drama, and Key Authors
Romanticism in Spain
Romanticism was an ideological and cultural movement whose roots are in the 17th-century ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and bourgeois liberalism. In Spain, this movement arrived somewhat late.
Characteristics of Romanticism
Romanticism was not just a cultural or literary movement; it was an attitude towards life. Its traits include:
- The yearning for freedom and rejection of any rules: abandonment of the rule of the three unities, use of polimetry in poetry, and a mixture