Salvador Espriu and Vicent Andrés Estellés: Post-War Catalan Poetry
Salvador Espriu: A Literary Analysis
This text analyzes the work of Salvador Espriu, focusing on his fiction, drama, and poetry. After the war, secrecy became a characteristic to bypass censorship. The work of Salvador Espriu is unitary, incorporating myth and tradition precisely to express literary concerns and circumstances. His work is influenced by mythological readings and the Bible. The myth of Sinera is always present in his work and represents:
- The world of childhood lost in the Civil War
- His country
- The tragic destiny of man
The influence of the Bible and Jewish culture parallels the situation of his people or Spain: Israel equals the Catalan people. His guidelines can be summarized as elegiac, satirical, and didactic aspects synthesized with lyricism in the civilian aspect.
Key Works of Salvador Espriu
“The Songs of Ariadne” was his first poem and introduces the world of Sinera.
Lyric Aspect:
- “Sinera Cemetery” evokes the world destroyed by war.
- “Hours” is divided into three parts, each dedicated to a being nearing death.
- “Mrs. Death” presents the recovery of the lyrical and satirical line.
- “The Walk and the Wall” shows the idea of vital movement towards death and the limits imposed by a barrier, the wall.
- This book belongs with “Songs of the Wheel of Time” by Raymond and “Trial of the Song in the Temple.”
- “The End of the Maze” continues the process of internalization of the previous works.
Civil Aspect:
A more didactic tone is included in:
- “Bull’s Leather”, his most renowned book. It speaks of freedom, justice, and tolerance, and broadens the view on the Iberian Peninsula (Sepharad) and, therefore, on Spain. The Iberian Peninsula appears as the skin of a bull destroyed by war between brothers and a lack of understanding among different Iberian peoples. It includes part of social realism.
- In “Book of Sinera”, he reviews the past, raises the future, and finds signs of hope.
Espriu’s work has the capacity to assimilate legendary heritage, such as the “Book of the Dead” in ancient Egypt, the Bible, the Jewish mystical tradition, and Greek mythology.
Vicent Andrés Estellés: Valencian Poet
Vicent Andrés Estellés is the greatest poet that the Valencian Country has produced since the fifteenth century. His literary work is related to two periods: the war and the post-war period. He lived through very traumatic experiences, finding work in his constant allusions. Some works, like “Standing in the Job Memory of Joan B. Peseta” and “Letter to the Painter Josep Renau”, were published later due to censorship.
“Book of Wonders”: A Masterpiece
The great poem of the war is “Book of Wonders”, which was a real bestseller. He became a chronicler poet of his everyday experiences, imagined or real, in a time of catastrophe or chaos. He mixed styles of poetry, records, traditions, etc., combining exquisite lyricism and narrative, everyday realism and idealism, learned language and colloquialisms.
Estellés’ Poetic Style
The poet brings a more direct and simpler language, more narrative, based on the colloquial register. He also incorporates references to the everyday reality of war and shared staff, with a testimonial and critical view. The author sought to contrast or break with tradition and sought to meet immediate contemporaries, linking with the classical tradition: medieval intertextuality, respect for writers, and Latin poets. He uses comparisons, qualifying adjectives placed before the noun, causing a slow pace, replicates polysyndeton, etc. He also varies metric compositions, using the poem and the dialogue-confession poem.
Later Career and Themes
Estellés worked as a journalist and collaborated with cultural movements and leftist and nationalist politics. In the 1970s, he became a symbol of cultural recovery in Valencia. After Franco’s death, he began to write “Mural in the Valencian”, which remained unfinished and was published posthumously.
His poetry can be divided into three thematic areas:
- Love Poetry: Romance, loyalty, and sentiment, but also sensuality and eroticism.
- Civic Poetry: A commitment to the reality of his country, staying close to the roots of his people and nation.
- Everyday Poetry: Formalization of happy moments of pleasure and sensations that are satisfactory because they are primary and essential in a time of crisis, hunger, pain, grief, and death.