Der Naturraum der Pyrenäen als Epochenmerkmal für den Modernismus (Caterina Albert: "Solitud", 1904-05)

Abstract

The natural space of the Pyrenees can be found at the heart of some paradigmatic texts both from the Renaixença (Verdaguer, Balaguer) and from Modernism (C. Albert). During the Renaixença it is combined with the Catalan Medieval Ages in order to contribute to the formation of historical national myths. In Modernism, nature’s functionality is modified, which is demonstrated obviously in the Pyrenean novel Solitud (1904/5) by Catarina Albert (pseud. Víctor Català). Víctor Català strips nature of its historical connotations. Unlike the texts from the Renaixença, the Pyrenees are named with fictitious toponyms and they are used as an example for a natural space that humans have to face and with which they share an essential and individual relation. So the Pyrenees cease to present the famous historic scenery, personification of the home country and space of identification. A place of intraliterary evolution is created: Víctor Català assigns a new function to the fairy tales from the Pyrenees – known through the verdaguerian Canigó – and she puts them into the service of the psychological analysis. The innovation that has been achieved by the modernist prose is due to the fact that human individual dynamics – created thanks to the mountainous nature – have been tackled, while the collective identity topic, that was so characteristic during the Renaixença, is resituated within another discourse, nowadays particularly political and theoretical.