Catalan Renaissance: History, Culture, and Literary Evolution

History and Language: The Decadence Period

Upon the marriage of Ferdinand II to Isabella of Spain, and his father's death in 1479, Ferdinand united the two states. This merger initiated a period of political and cultural subordination known as the Decadence, during which Spanish began to replace Catalan, leading to the decline of the Catalan linguistic community. In the sixteenth century, Catalan and Spanish were in general contact. The Council of Trent, however, did not permit the translation of religious texts into Romance languages for censorship purposes. Later, significant immigration would have major socio-linguistic repercussions due to the introduction of other languages.

Cultural Shifts: The Rise of Humanism

The period of rebirth, the Renaissance, brought forth new perspectives. The Church had distanced itself from addressing real problems, using incomprehensible language for the layman. This context saw the emergence of humanists. Petrarch was highly influential, with his works notably translated by Bernat Metge. In our region, the humanist model did not fully emerge until the fifteenth century, notably with Joan Lluís Vives.

Literary Renaissance and Core Principles

Humanism awakened an interest in the values of the classical world, fostering the belief in the possibility of restoring these values in art, science, and everyday life. Renaissance thought was based on three core principles:

• Anthropocentrism: Man as the center of the universe, the measure of all things.
• Nature: Valued as a place of art and culture.
• Classicism: Recovery of Greco-Latin references as ideological and cultural foundations.

The end of this period is marked by the Counter-Reformation, initiated by the Council of Trent in 1563. This revival in the art world involved the recovery of classical genres and forms, alongside popular and traditional art and literature.

Ausiàs March: Poetic Innovations and Themes

The "Power of Love" cycle explores themes of mad love, transitioning from spiritual to sensual. This corresponds to the poet's mature period. His most characteristic style involves the comparison of lived experience to express a heightened emotional state, often appealing to antithesis to convey sentimental contradictions. The metrics are fairly regular, typically featuring decasyllabic lines, often with a masculine ending, distributed in four-line stanzas with crossed rhyme (ABBA). In his poetic language, there is no longer the use of Provençal forms.

His verses are considered the largest and most influential work of our ancient literature. The first edition was published in Valencia in 1539 and was bilingual.