Institucionalització de la literatura i institucionalització de la llengua literària

Abstract

It is accepted, within the framework of the contemporary Catalan cultural system, that Pompeu Fabra was the architect of modern literary Catalan. The contemporary institutionalization of the Catalan language is therefore a product of the 20th century: a work of Fabra and Noucentisme. Yet before Fabra there was already modern Catalan literature, and there is no institutionalization of literature without an also institutionalized literary language. How is this contradiction resolved? The noucentists conveyed the idea that 19th-century literature was «languageless» literature, but a new look at the past compels us to rethink our views, and to ask ourselves whether reality requires further nuances. In this work, a proposal is made to periodise the progressive institutionalization of contemporary Catalan as a literary language, in a span that begins in 1859 and ends in 1913, with the implementation of the Fabra reform.