Catalan Modernism: A Cultural Renaissance in the 19th Century

Catalan Modernism: The ending of the nineteenth century saw a new generation of intellectuals emerge, reshaping the cultural scene with a renaissance of local and modern thought. This period was marked by a renewal obsession with modernity, characterized by a critical and renewed clash with society.
The bourgeoisie, arising from the industrial process, can be described as:

• Economically powerful.
• Ideologically conservative.
• Politically weak.

"They are the sons of those who fought against this bourgeois concept and proposed a national character that was modern.1st Period: (1882-1900) The intellectuals adopted a renewed attitude and positivist thinking. They defended realism and naturalism in literature and were concerned with modernizing and standardizing language. Thinkers like Nietzsche emerged as the new guiding figures of society, emphasizing a mechanical function. Joan Maragall became a key figure, influencing culture and politics of his time.

2nd Period: (1912) This period marked the establishment of modernism as a movement, which lost the aggressiveness of the 1st period. The bourgeoisie accepted and assimilated the movement, endorsing it. The Alternative Narrative on the Naturalist Model: The novel was deconstructed, leading to skepticism about the value of analysis and documentation of daily reality due to mankind's distrust in these analyses. This culminated in a pessimistic societal outlook, known as the "bad century," where descent into despair became a way of life. The literal reality did not coincide with the external world, and man lived in a state where reality could never be fully understood. Naturalists defended the identity of real observation, rejecting the modernist analytical methods they deemed limited. They believed that knowledge of reality was only possible through emotion and feeling. Language was used in a way that often lost meaning in favor of referential metaphors. The modernist narrative embodied the loss of individuality and consciousness, representing the struggle between the "asleep" and the "awake," in opposition to Nietzsche's strong modernist theory of the Übermensch. The representatives of this narrative often appeared impoverished by the weight of their own conscience.