Analysis of Catalan Poetry: Exile, Love, and Loss
Corrandes Exile
“Avant-garde.” It is a short form of popular song (Corrandes) normally improvised. Written by Pere Quart, pseudonym of Joan Oliver (1899 – Barcelona 1984), they were published in Salon d’Automne (1947) in the middle of the poet’s exile in Chile. Each Corrandes refers to a stage of the road to exile. The time of departure and the intensity of grief (I); support of the beloved (II) and dealing with the abandoned land (III), ripping the vital (IV), nostalgia as a survival tool (V), the evocation of the most intimate roots abandoned (VI); meeting outside the ideal dellocus amoenus to be happy and free, and despite the defeat, faith in a free and comprehensive homeland (VIII).
Form: Most are four-verse heptasyllabic lines. Peter the fourth alternates five and four verses with rhymes regularly.
Chamber of Autumn
Gabriel Ferrater shapes and tells a story of fleeting and intense love with a partner in a room, very limited in time. The title of the poem places us in the time of year and probably refers to where the relationship is at that time, in maturity, i.e., when the relationship is about to end. There are external factors involved from outside that synchronize with the passing of time and action. The poet makes a metaphorical game between the voices and the leaves that fall and drag the buried bodies and the fullness of love. The poet, in three verses of this poem, says that in the fall, the girl still has brown skin, and the intimate parts where the sun has not touched are white.
Form: The poem consists of a series of twenty-three decasyllabic verses. Literary resources such as synesthesia (combining multiple sensory impressions in a single statement) appear.
20th Century:
The Distant City
The title of this poem is evocative, suggesting both a reference to Catalonia and abstract concepts and ideas that Catalans have relied on for a free future. Miquel Torres (Lleida, 1910 – San Quirico Safaja, 1942) wrote this poem in 1939. The first quartet, which starts in a ‘now’ that marks the defeat, appeals to the homeland to protect its children who never betrayed it. In the second quartet, it is about the spirit of the pure voice that speaks of the Fatherland. The poet wants to forget the city of defeat and senses another city of the future over the vicissitudes of time. The voice of this new city will reach all corners and bring warmth to the hearts of exiles.
Form: “The moon and city ana” is a sonnet of Alexandrians with the following rhyme scheme: 12A / 12B/12A/12B / 12C/12D/12C/12D / 12E/12F/12F / 12G/12H/12H
As We Kissed
This poem is part of The Book of Songs in the Lips (1923). It is a poem dedicated to a song about an intense one-hour love story. The need to write in French has a specific purpose. We can divide it into 4 parts: one that explains where the action happens (port of Marseille), another that explains why a girl prays to stay with her love, a second part that explains the sailor’s thoughts and the possession of love, and finally, the danger of loving. The poem uses elements such as the color blue, which corresponds with the blue hands tied to the tower of Aven, and the intangible (the girl’s murmurs) represented with three meters. The poem uses two sweeps to represent the danger of loving.
Form: The poem is written in free verse.