Key Figures in Medieval Catalan Literature
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Arnau de Vilanova: He was a prestigious doctor who worked in the service of James I, Peter II, King Alfonso III, and James II, and even served as doctor to Pope Boniface VIII. He was known for his speeches against the excessive wealth of the Church.
Ramon Llull: Born into a noble family in Mallorca shortly after the conquest by James I, he spent his first 30 years living a courtly life. At 30, he underwent a conversion that transformed his turbulent life into one of risky missions.
Characteristics:
- Idealistic and utopian: He conceived a plan of universal salvation, writing in Latin, Arabic, and Catalan.
- Tolerant and liberal: He conceived a doctrine that combined the three revealed religions.
- Depressive and anxious temperament: His life and missionary journeys were marked by attempts to organize a new crusade. When his expectations were frustrated, he retired to write creative works. He wrote in four languages and covered several subjects. His work includes over two hundred titles. Notable works include The Book of Wonders and Lo … council.
Llull’s didactics are characterized by:
- The presence of characters, often marginal.
- A concentric circles structure.
- Human characters who tell tales, while non-human characters explain examples or stories about human characters.
Eiximenis Francisco: A Franciscan friar of great intellectual formation, he studied and traveled to Paris, Oxford, etc. He lived a long time in Valencia, where he had a strong influence on their work. He was bishop of Elna and patriarch of Jerusalem. His most notable work is Lo Crestià , a great encyclopedia on Christian ideology with moral and informative intentions, alternating long explanations and arguments with examples and fables that make for entertaining reading.
Vincent Ferrer: A Dominican friar, he was famous as a speaker and thaumaturge. He preached throughout Europe and participated in the Compromise of Caspe in favor of Fernando de Antequera. Much of his sermons were retained thanks to the shorthand writers who accompanied him. He spoke to large crowds that followed him wherever he went.
Features:
- Colloquial and popular language.
- Staging and posturing in his speeches.
- Popularization and modernization of Biblical passages to make them more understandable.
- Repetitive use of resources, using examples, comparisons, and onomatopoeia.
Sor Isabel de Villena: Daughter of a natural humanist from Castile, she was abbess of the Convent of the Trinity of Valencia. She wrote a life of Jesus (Vita Christi) intended as edifying reading for the nuns of her convent, because the figure of Jesus is secondary to highlight the role of female characters. Sor Isabel de Villena popularized the family life of Jesus, moving the reading public with a domestic detail that does not appear in any of the four Gospels.
Anselm Turmeda: The work of this friar (Franciscan) is a good example of this type of literature. In 1385, he fled to Tunisia, where he converted to Islam and held important public positions. He enjoyed prestige as a wise and holy man, to the point where his tomb is still publicly venerated.
The Birth of Literary Prose
In medieval times, there was no “rule” that the Latin. ie, those who could read and write, they did in Latin, and Latin alphabet adapted to the phonetics of different Romance languages when they wrote. The digests spelling and grammar of modern languages do not emerge until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Therefore, the standard of linguistic correctness, established the prestige of some unquestionable literary figures, or the scribes who manufactured legal and administrative documents on behalf of the king.
Ramon Llull’s Merit: He was the first author to write books on scientific and romance language, this means:
- Using a suitable and flexible syntax.
- Expanding and creating appropriate vocabulary to express abstract concepts with the incorporation of roots taken from Latin.