Chivalric Literature in Valencia: From Medieval Tales to Tirant lo Blanc

Chivalric Literature: From Medieval Tales to Tirant lo Blanc

Books of Chivalry: At the center of these stories was the figure of a knight-errant, who was involved in a string of daring missions, following an ethical code. These missions of the knights took on a purely anecdotal and adventurous nuance, including courtly love, and religious or symbolic elements. The stories were always wrapped in a good dose of fantasy, magic, and wonderful items. Dissemination from the European area of Britain was early in our land, and over the fourteenth century: Blandín of Cornwall or The Fable. But our literature made the genre evolve into what is called the chivalric novel, more credible and realistic, reflecting the changes.

The New Chivalric Novels

Novell developed the chivalric adventures of characters in a realistic human dimension, gaining psychological complexity. We must remember that the protagonists of these works were a model for contemporary readers.

The Total Novel: Tirant lo Blanc

Galba Martí, better known as Joanot Martorell, published Tirant lo Blanc in 1490. The work was translated and published in other languages: Spanish, Italian, French... The issue of realism is tinged with unknown knightly life, overflowing with happiness. The evolution of complex characters and the surprising outcome break many of the novel's genre conventions forever. Tirant lo Blanc is a novel that reveals new treatments on each page, containing a summa of language styles and registers of the time, and we are still intrigued by the multiplicity of readings on which it stands.

Literary Decadence in the 16th and 17th Centuries

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, under the dynasty of the House of Austria, sociopolitical and economic changes occurred in the Crown of Aragon, including the historical separation between its kingdoms. Key events include:

• The expulsion of the Jews (1492), which led to economic problems and the decline of writers and readers.
• Problems with maritime trade. The discovery of America (1492) shifted trade from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.
• The Revolt of the Germanies in Valencia (1519-1521). The guilds rebelled against the aristocracy, who had the help of the king.
• The expulsion of the Moors (1609) implied the loss of a third of the population of the Kingdom of Valencia.
• The county of Roussillon was incorporated into France by the Treaty of the Pyrenees.
• The childless death of Carlos II (1700) caused the War of Succession (1700-1714), pitting the supporters of the Bourbon candidate Philip of Anjou against those of Archduke Charles of Austria. The turning of the war in favor of Felipe V began with the outcome of the Battle of Almansa (04/25/1707).

Valencian Prose: Joan Roís de Corella

Corella actively participated in the intense literary, social, and intellectual world of his time in Valencia. His extraordinary sensitivity to lyrical style and his strong literary training enabled him to imitate Latin syntax and bright sentence construction as no one had ever done before. Valencian prose is a style full of Latinate cultisms, hyperbatons, epithets, multiple periphrases, and infinitives dependent on another verb.