Mallorcan Literature and Noucentisme: Key Authors, Themes and Historical Context

Topic 3: The School of Mallorcan Poetry

Characteristics: Balance between classicism and romanticism. Use of formal metrics and regular classical forms, with a neo-romantic influence. Themes of interiorized nature, feelings and expressed emotions. Mon poetry: valuation of Classical authors.

Influences: Horace, Ovid and Prudentius. Satirical authors who convey poetic production in Castilian (youth) and Catalan (adulthood). Connections with Noucentista writers from Barcelona and their influence.

Miquel Costa i Llobera

(Pollença 1854 – Palma 1922)

• Moved to Barcelona, then again to Madrid in 1875.
• After two years, in 1885, he went to study ecclesiastical subjects.
• 1888: ordained as a priest.
• 1890: returned to Mallorca.
• He is considered a Noucentista era figure.

Works

Romantic period (Poems, 1885) and classical period (Horacianes, 1906). His works are inspired by religion, such as Visions of Palestine (1908) and Lyrics (1899).

Joan Alcover

(Palma 1854 – 1926)

• Moved to Barcelona, where he died in the market after his first marriage.
• Two children (and two more later).

He was an author of prose of a serious nature. His landscape poetry identifies with his state of mind and mood. He did not participate in the Renaixença movement; in 1903 he adopted a decided attitude as a defender of the use of Catalan.

Humanization of discourse: his art synthesizes his own vitalist theories, moving from Modernisme toward the claim and care of character and a Noucentista language.

Poetry book: Towards the Later (1909).

Master of Gay Saber, President of the Barcelona Floral Games and member of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans.

Topic 4: Noucentisme

Characteristics

• Professionalization: the poet is prepared, generally with university training and serious formation.
• Formal aspects: valuation of form, use of the sonnet.
• Sentiment of civility: educated people, a city-centered view, urbanized nature, gardens, and suitable human action. Valuation of the Mediterranean culture and its heritage.
• Arbitrarism: art is not natural; it is something humans create. Art is valued for human action and artifice.

Noucentisme

A classicizing reaction against Modernisme. It sought to defend art and literature through the canons of classicism, aiming to return to governing rules, as in movements such as the Renaissance (1906–1923).

Important Facts

• 1906: Eugeni d'Ors begins his running glossary, Glosari, in the voice of Catalonia.
• 1906: Josep Carner publishes Els fruits saborosos (The Flavorful Fruits).
• 1923: Beginning of the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera.

Commonwealth of Catalonia

The four Catalan provinces came together and formed a single government, the Mancomunitat de Catalunya, which governed from 1914 to 1923. It was chaired by Enric Prat de la Riba until his death in 1917, and then by Josep Puig i Cadafalch, who created important infrastructure, including the Institut d'Estudis Catalans.