A History Of Catalan Folk Literature

A History of Catalan Folk Literature is the fruit of a collaborative effort between fifteen researchers from various universities and research centres who have joined forces to create a broader study of Catalan folk literature that addresses the Catalan linguistic and cultural territories in their entirety. Since the thirteenth century, Catalan culture has created a rich and abundant literary legacy, and since the mid-nineteenth century this has been complemented by a tradition of folklore studies that remains very much alive today. Within this comparatively recent discipline, folk literature has played a particularly important role. The book presents the evolution of Catalan folk literature studies in each of the areas that make up the Catalan linguistic and cultural territories referred to above. The period considered stretches from the mid-nineteenth century, when the beginnings of a scientific interest in folklore emerged across Europe, to the present day.

This volume contains a selection of three translations of articles by Josep M. Pujol (Barcelona, 1947–2012), one in each of the three areas that he defined to characterise his work in the field of folklore: the theory of interactive artistic communication; the history of folklore studies and folk literature; and folk narrative. The three articles give a taste of the important contributions he made to the study of folklore, and which have been studied and contextualised by Carme Oriol in the introduction that precedes the three texts. This edition also includes the complete folkloric bibliography of Josep M. Pujol in chronological order, with all the references.

This volume contains a selection of three translations of articles by Josep M. Pujol (Barcelona, 1947-2012), one in each of the three areas that he defined to characterise his work in the field of folklore: the theory of interactive artistic communication; the history of folklore studies and folk literature; and folk narrative. The three articles give a taste of the important contributions he made to the study of folklore, and which have been studied and contextualised by Carme Oriol in the introduction that precedes the three texts. This edition also includes the complete folkloric bibliography of Josep M. Pujol in chronological order, with all the references.

In writing this brief history of Catalan literature, I have tried to bear in mind the needs of the non-specialist reader with some knowledge of Spanish who wishes to know more about an important but, on the whole, neglected area of Peninsular culture. Where English readers are concerned, the task, unfortunately, is long overdue: in a recent and otherwise excellent literary encyclopedia, the whole of Catalan literature is allotted the same amount of space as Jean-Paul Sartre, and this seems characteristic of a situation which few specialists as yet have tried to alter. The chief barrier, of course, is linguistic: yet it is not difficult to acquire at least a reading knowledge of Catalan, and for reasons which are given in Chapter 1, the older literature is relatively accessible to a modern reader compared, say, with that of France or Spain. This accessibility gives an impression of coherence to the entire range of Catalan literature which is reinforced to a great extent by social and historical tendencies. Roughly speaking, Catalan literature follows a recognizable European pattern, with one notable exception: the fact that its course is interrupted for something like three centuries by what is usually known as the period of "Decadence" (see Chapter 2). To see why this should be so demands an awareness of certain historical facts, and these in turn point to the close interpenetration of literature and society which is evident in most phases of Catalan culture. Both the 19th-century revival and the more conscious programs of noucentisme in the 20th are attempts to create a new national identity, a task which has lost none of its urgency in the years since the Spanish Civil War. - Preface.

New "Complete Edition" in 14 volumes edited from primary sources by Stefano Grondona. Miguel Llobet, was indisputably the greatest guitarist of the first half of the 20th century. Volume 1 contains the Catalan Folk songs magnificently harmonised by Miguel Llobet, and for which he is maybe best known. Ample biographical information with copious notes and much unpublished archive material complete this volume which is a milestone in guitar history and Catalonian cultural life.