Noucentisme: Catalan Cultural Movement & Josep Carner’s Poetry
Noucentisme: A Catalan Cultural Shift
Noucentisme represented the interests and aspirations of the Catalan bourgeoisie, intellectuals, and artists, contrasting with *Modernisme*. It marked a period of cultural transformation, aiming to elevate Catalan culture to a European standard, including linguistic reform. This movement was influenced by political currents, Catalan religious aspects, and traditional Catholicism. Prat de la Riba, a key figure from both Catholic and Catalan nationalist circles and head of the Regionalist League party, represented the interests of the conservative Catalan bourgeoisie. He proposed the creation of a civil and cultural climate of education, order, and normalcy. Influential figures included Pompeu Fabra (grammar) and Eugenio d’Ors and Josep Carner (literature).
Between 1914 and 1920, Catalonia experienced serious social conflicts between unions and employers, further impacted by the Russian Revolution of October 1917, terrorism, and conflicts between intellectuals and politicians. The final blow to Noucentisme was the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera in 1923. Eugenio d’Ors was the theorist of Noucentisme, detailed in his work *Glossary*.
Josep Carner: The Noucentista Poet
Carner’s poetry is defined by classicism, understood as a rejection of Romanticism. The self is the center of the poem, rejecting chance and inspiration. Measure and restraint form the basis of his poems. There is no despair, drama, or tragedy in Carner’s poetry, but rather a gentle melancholy, irony, and intelligent lucidity. His mastery of the language is evident in his use of neologisms, archaisms, vernacularisms, and colloquialisms, creating a new and flexible language. His loyalty to the Catalan language was preserved despite his exile. He recovered classical forms such as the sonnet and showed a keen interest in rhetoric, but his work is neither artificial nor baroque; irony, wisdom, and restraint prevent this. The poet chooses elements of everyday life, the reality of space and time. His poems create a kind of reality that is untroubled, beautiful, and stylish.
*The Tasty Fruits*: A Reflection on Life’s Stages
The poem *The Tasty Fruits* presents a stylized romance of names with Greek characters embedded in a colorful, natural setting. These nature poems, in a classic, *amble* genre, reflect the poet’s approach to the human condition, focusing on elegance and restraint. This vision centers on the stages of life: childhood, youth, maturity, and beauty, leading to a sweet and calm reflection on the passage of time. The different ages of life are presented positively. In all the poems, there is a generous acceptance of the pleasure of seeing and tasting the world and life. Although this is represented in scenes of everyday life, it is never vulgar, but stylized, in an orderly, serene, harmonious, and beautiful world.
The Greek names promote a distancing from the framework of reality and create an idyllic, natural setting, a *locus amoenus*. Nature is kind, generous, and sometimes even humorously personified. The landscape is clearly Mediterranean. The fruits symbolize aspects of human life, forming a vital circle: the characters and the fruit accompanying each stage correspond to a time in the character’s life. The characters are predominantly women and children. The children enjoy the small pleasures of nature and are often related to the home. The poem frequently uses Alexandrine verse. Finally, Carner’s position is objective; he does not involve his own feelings. The work exudes a serene acceptance of the human condition, a defense of the simple happiness of life, a happiness that, while having its limitations, is found in order, simplicity, purity, and beauty.