La Renaixença: Cultural Revival of the Catalan Language
Renaixença (XIX)
Renaixença is a cultural renewal movement that began in Catalonia and aimed to restore the cultivated use of the Catalan language.
Factors
- Illustrated heritage
- Enrichment of the bourgeoisie thanks to the Industrial Revolution
- Influence of Romanticism, through the exaltation and defence of personality and the freedom of peoples, and interest in the Middle Ages
Key Milestones
The publication of La Pàtria by Bonaventura Carles Aribau expressed love for the mother tongue. Joaquim Rubió i Ors followed in the prologue to Lo gaiter del Llobregat, which affirmed the will to achieve Catalan literary independence.
The goal of building a proper literature in Catalan began with the restoration of the Jocs Florals in Barcelona in 1859, which guaranteed the continuity and social projection of an isolated and intermittent effort.
In 1865, a generation of authors spread the principles of the Renaixença through magazines, publishing houses, and associations. The Renaixentistes came into contact with Catalan political nationalism and the movement came to be considered a movement for the renewal of collective life.
The consolidation of the Renaixença movement is linked to 1877, when Jacint Verdaguer and Àngel Guimerà were awarded at the Jocs Florals.
Renaixença in the Balearic Islands
In Mallorca, the magazine La Palma allowed Romanticism to enter the islands, encouraged the recovery of medieval texts, and established contacts with Catalonia.
Authors: Maria Antònia Salvà
The Valencian Renaixença
Under the influence of Marià Arguilló, the Jocs Florals were celebrated in València, which were not repeated until 1879, when they were established by Lo Rat-Penat under Constantí Llombart, with the intention of gathering all Valencianists.
Llombart tried to give the Valencian Renaixença a popular and progressive projection, but it was dominated by the conservative bourgeois group of Teodor Llorente, author of a poetic work in the style of the Jocs Florals.
- Popular writers: they used colloquial Valencian and had no intention of restoring cultivated usage.
- Bourgeois writers: they reduced literary restoration to the composition of artificial poetry.
Jacint Verdaguer
(1845–1902) Born in Ripoll and ordained as a priest, he took part in the Jocs Florals of Barcelona and became associated with the most prominent figures of the Renaixença.
- L'Atlàntida: a classical epic about the power of nature and faith.
- Canigó: an epic that mythifies the history and landscapes of Catalonia.
The rest of his work includes poems on religious themes and prose books such as Diari d'un pelegrí a Terra Santa.