Les débuts de la 'Renaixença' catalane – entre le libéralisme bourgeois et le passéisme nostalgique

Abstract

To understand Catalanism, it is necessary to consider the extraordinary movement of spiritual, political, social and economic renewal that came to be known as the Renaixença, and in particular its beginnings, from the publication of the programmatic ode La pàtria by Bonaventura Carles Aribau (1833) until the solemn renewal of the Jocs Florals in Barcelona (1859). This article tries to show the objective convergence between the economic interests of the rising Catalan bourgeoisie on the one hand and the national and romantic tendencies of the new Catalan literature on the other. The most striking result of that important stage for Catalan fiction was that Catalan, the language of the people, was saved as the language of literature and science.