20th Century Catalan Literature: Classicism, Regionalism, and Modernism

Noucentisme: Catalan Cultural Renewal and Classicism

Noucentisme was a political strategy structured around language, culture, and education, rooted in a classical movement. Authors favored the rule, harmony, balance, and order, aligning with European rationalism.

Political and Cultural Context

Politically, the movement centered on the figure of Enric Prat de la Riba and the creation in 1901 of the Lliga Regionalista party, which gathered the Catalan nationalist aspirations of the conservative bourgeoisie.

Core Objectives

• Normalization of Catalan culture.

Poetic Characteristics of Noucentisme

Noucentista poetry featured a strong rejection of spontaneity and artificiality, favoring objectivity and distancing the poet from the subject matter. It sought to flee the display of raw emotion and feelings, referencing a classical world that referred to a higher, idealized realm.

• Rejection: Spontaneity, artificiality, and the everyday.
• Focus: Objectivity and distancing of the poet.
• Classicism: Selection of rigid poetic forms and constrained resources.
• References: Tendency to use classical and mythological allusions.
• World Vision: Beautiful, noble, and serene.

Style, Language, and Themes

The style was citizen-focused, viewing the city as the paradigm of civilization. Nature, when it appeared, was interpreted idyllically; it was no longer wild and indomitable, but orderly, friendly, domesticated, and ultimately humanized.

• Language: Cultured and refined, incorporating archaisms.
• Meter: Strong interest in meter, created or recreated from ancient tradition and popular forms.
• Tone: Use of irony and satire to express critical views, often containing a Christian component.
• Themes: Love, nature, and idealized women.
• Key Authors: Josep Carner, Guerau de Liost.

The Mallorcan School (Escola Mallorquina)

The School Mallorquina was a very specific poetic current that included two generations, though it primarily refers to the two main authors of the period: Joan Alcover and Miquel Costa i Llobera.

Generations and Key Figures

• First Generation (1903–1921): Maria Antònia Salvà, Llorenç Riber, and Miquel Ferrà.
• Second Generation (1903–1921): Miquel Forteza, Guillem Colom, Joan Pons, and Marquis.

Defining Characteristics

• Will for formal perfection.
• Traditionalist nationalism.
• Return to classical Greek-Latin forms.
• Exaltation of the Mallorcan landscape.
• Projection of a rural peace without tension.
• Research into equilibrium.
• Subjectivism and intimacy.
• Emotional containment.
• Improvement of the verse.
• Use of a cultured and refined language.

Catalan Avant-garde Movements (Vanguard)

The Avant-garde movements emerged in Europe in the first third of the twentieth century and profoundly affected the Catalan artistic and literary world, mainly influenced by France and Italy. These movements showed a willingness to break not only artistic models but also moral ones, driven by a spirit of protest and subversion of the established order.

Definition and Context

Avant-garde movements elaborated a theory based on the creative break with established art, leading to a search for new theories of art, or rather anti-artistic theories, which made manifest the deep crisis of the arts and literature.

Key Characteristics of the Avant-garde

• Crisis of the bourgeoisie's prepared schemes.
• Intent to destroy traditional art.
• Search for new forms of expression.
• Assimilation of other cultures, whether geographically or temporally remote.
• Social nonconformity.
• Use of Freudian methods and findings.