Catalan literature

The centuries long chapter known as Decadència that followed the golden age of Valencian literature, was perceived as extremely poor and lacking literary works of quality.

Further attempts to explain why this happened (see History of Catalonia) have motivated new critical studies of the period, and nowadays a revalorisation of this early modern age is taking place.

Another early Catalan poem is the mid-13th century Augats, seyós qui credets Déu lo Payre, a planctus Mariae (lament of Mary).

During this early period Occitan literature was patronised by the rulers of Catalonia—not surprisingly considering their wide involvement in Occitanian politics and as Counts of Provence.

The most prolific Catalan troubadour during the ascendancy of Occitan as language of literature, was Cerverí de Girona, who left behind more than one hundred works.

A third Catalan treatise on the language of the troubadours and composing lyric poetry, the Mirall de trobar ("Mirror of Composition"), was written by a Majorcan, Berenguer d'Anoia.

Authors as the humanist Bernat Metge the preacher Vincent Ferrer, Francesc Eiximenis or Anselm Turmeda write works now considered as classical models of Catalan prose.

Written by the Valencian writer Joanot Martorell, this epic romance was among its time's most influential novels, and possibly the last major book in Catalan literature until the 19th century.

Their most important adherents were indeed Jacint Verdaguer, who penned Catalonia's national epic, and Àngel Guimerà, whose plays were translated and performed around Europe.

The cultural and political movement known as Noucentisme appeared in the early 20th century, a time of great economic growth in Catalonia, as a mostly conservative reaction against Modernisme and the Avantgarde, both in art and thought.

After what seemed to be a period of hope and rapid growth, the Spanish Civil War and the establishment of Francoist Spain (starting in 1939) forced many Catalan leftist intellectuals into exile, as many of them faced political persecution.

Also by the end of the 1940s well known authors such as Josep Maria de Sagarra were publishing again in Catalan (among others, El prestigi dels morts, 1946, L'Hereu i la forastera, 1949).

[3] In 1962, Mercè Rodoreda published The Time of the Doves, possibly the book which paved the way of modern Catalan literature, since it could enjoy wider recognition due to the new media and the spreading of literacy in this language.

[4] Later on that decade Josep Pla published what has been considered the masterpiece of the contemporary literature in Catalan, the seminal El Quadern Gris (1966).

Besides the aforementioned authors, other relevant 20th-century writers of the Francoist and democracy periods include Joan Brossa, Agustí Bartra, Manuel de Pedrolo, Pere Calders or Quim Monzó, Jesús Moncada or, in 21st century, Jaume Cabré or Albert Sánchez Piñol.