Henry: Literary Contributions and Valencian Heritage
The literary value of Henry lies in two major contributions: his five novels and his short stories. He employs an omniscient and subjective narrator, achieving greater precision, thoroughness, and accuracy in detail. His great proficiency is evident in his use of oral folk tradition and a well-balanced literary language.
The tales are drawn from a core source of oral narrative, profoundly transforming and reformulating the stories, often focusing on cults. The short stories are notable for their rich language, often presenting small romantic and sentimental pieces.
In his novels, Henry pours his biographical experiences and knowledge of the earth. Without the Promised Land is a chronicle of the early twentieth century and the First World War. Time Batting and Beyond the Horizon chronicle the Civil War. The narrative often shifts to the first person to offer a more truthful portrayal of the fictional material and increase the reader’s complicity.
Cassana is a key literary space for Henry, though space and time do not adhere to chronological or geographical specificity. He has created a rich literary register, fully utilizing the expressive potential of language. This best represents the unbroken continuity of the Valencian language and literary tradition before and after the Civil War. He is a key figure in the contemporary history of Valencia, with his extraordinary work manifesting in three aspects: as a rondallista (teller of tales), novelist, and grammarian.
His novel production in the postwar period began with The Ambition of Aleix (published with a ten-year delay due to censorship). This novel symbolizes the people and nature as a refuge from the destruction of cities through close contact with the mountain of the protagonist.
His fictional work continued with The Idea of Emigrating and the “Cassana Cycle” (Without the Promised Land, Time Batting, and Beyond the Horizon), which rescues from oblivion and rebuilds a world disappearing from collective memory. He also published short stories in A and Other Fundamentalist Vinalopó Contarelles.
Two aspects define his narrative: a passion to tell stories and a passion to teach.
Henry as Rondallista
As a literaturized rondallista, Henry has thirty-six folkloric tales of great narrative value. They are classified into three types:
- Fairy tales (involving human beings endowed with supernatural powers and magical objects)
- Tales of customs (reflecting the lifestyle of agrarian society)
- Tales of animals (where the characters are humanized animals)
A tale is a storytelling and oral transmission of anonymous authorship on imaginary facts. It is characterized by the use of a fixed set of formulas that start and close the story. Structurally, it consists of five sequences: first, the characters and space are presented; second, the action opens; third, the conflict arises; fourth, the conflict resolves; and fifth, the final situation where the character’s initial circumstances have changed.
The Present Value of Henry’s Tales
The present value of Henry’s tales lies in characteristics that differentiate them:
- The story is set in Valencian spaces.
- There is not only specific work of folklorist own collection, but an act of literary language.
- He uses a popular but incorrect, an extremely rich vocabulary.
- There is a selection of stories according to the criteria of “good taste”.