Catalan Renaissance may be said to have begun with the works of Verdaguer, Soler and Rubio between 1840 and 1850, though some little interest had been taken in the language by philologists and literary historians previous to this time. Carlos Areban, a noted Spanish poet, wrote in his native Catalan, a fervid ode to his patron, Remisa, in which he painted the past glories of Catalan and mourned its neglected estate. This proved a powerful inspiration to native Catalans. It was extensively printed, re cited and imitated, and brought vivid, patriotic imitators in its train who urged the study of the ancient Catalan literature; and, wonderful to relate, this artificial movement was immense ly successful and it became the popular thing in Spain and elsewhere to praise and encour age Catalan. RubiO's poems, which began to appear in the public press in 1841, stirred up enthusiasm wherever Catalan was read. Look ing to the past and praising the glories of an cient Catalan, they turned attention to a long neglected and almost forgotten literature. Then came Sol y Padris, young, energetic and enthu siastic, who, taking men's eyes from the past, set them on the future. His became the voice of the prophet proclaiming the renaissance of Catalan. Bora full added to the movement esthetic taste and good literary style; Villar raya, with his 'Canco,' and Pascula Perez, with his 'Sent Vicente Ferer,' gave a new impetus and enthusiasm to the renaissance movement. After 1850 Bonilla and Baldovi added a new patriotic note. In 1861 Mila added still more to the Catalan revival by the publication of his 'Trovadores en Espana,' which painted, in glowing colors, the early literary history of Spain and especially Catalan. This was fol lowed by Astorch's 'Catalan Ma gner became the bright particular propagandist for the return to Catalan; and Borafull, Mila and Rubio succeeded in restoring the ancient floral games which had done so much to en courage literature under the native kings. Teodoro Llorente and Vincente W. Queral add ed fervor, inspiration and correctness of style to the new movement and showed what Catalan was capable of producing in the way of mod ern literature.
Robreno y Renart revived the traditions of the ancient Catalan theatre in his very popular comic drama; and Federico Soler produced a series of musical parody comedies which were immensely popular, the first of these appearing in 1864. Vidal Valenciano, in 'Tal faris tal trovaris) revolutionized the Catalan drama, in spired numerous other writers of note, and es tablished the popularity of the rising Catalan theatre. Damaso Calvert, Conrado Roure and Francisco Pelayo Briz and numerous lyric poets helped along the Catalan revival. News papers and journals in Catalan appeared in va rious cities and Catalan theatres and good act ors sprang up all over the land. Among
the later names of this movement the most noted are Ignacio Iglesias, Rusigfiol and Angel Guimera. Of these the latter is by far the greatest name in Catalan literature and his is the foremost name in modern Spanish drama, even though his plays have had to be translated from Catalan into Spanish. Guimeri's name is synonymous with Ci.talan drama. He began exhibiting his plays when there was no theatre which would take them, for they had no com mercial value; and he has lived to see Catalan drama in possession of the Teatro Principal of Barcelona, the largest playhouse in all Spain, and to rejoice over its possession of excellent i theatres not only in Catalonia, but in all the principal cities of the land. Guimera has been proclaimed, by the whole Spanish people, one of the greatest geniuses of the Spanish stage and of Spanish literature, of which Catalan is nationally looked upon in Spain as a dialect.
He is very emotional, imaginative, strong, fierce tunes; a master of situations and all the tricks of the drama. He always goes straight to the heart of the situation and he has as strong a dramatic sense as Shakespeare and Hugo, his two masters. His early plays were written in blank verse; but later he adopted a peculiarly vivid and exact prose in which redundances and verbosity of all kinds were avoided. Rapidity of movement distin guishes all his work. Among his dramas, which are numerous, are 'Gala ; 'Mar y CeP ; 'L'Anima Mona); 'Lc) Fill del Rey' • 'Las Monjas de Sant Ayman> ; 'En Polvora); 'Terra Baixa> (translated into English under the title of 'Marta of the Lowlands') ; 'Aygua que Corr& ; 'Las Pecadors' ; 'Sol Solet> • Cami del Sol' ; de Nazareth.' ; and 'La Reyna Jove.' He has also written comedies of local customs, farces and distinctly romantic dramas, poems and patriotic songs. He was the first to carry Catalan drama beyond the bound aries of Spain. His plays have been trans lated into more than a of languages and the best of them have been played in nearly all the great capitals of Europe and America. Baja,' in the translation made by Wallace Gillpatrick of New York, was presented on the metropolitan stage in 1903 and since then it has been periodically revived, has traveled across the continent several times and has been taken to England. 'Maria la Rosa> has also been translated into English.
Cambouliu, (Essai sur l'his toire de la litterature catalane) (Paris); Mile y Fontanals, 'Observaciones sobre la literatura catalana popular' (Barcelona) ; Pers y Ramona, 'Historia de la lengua y de la litera tura catalana' (Barcelona) ; Rubio y Ors, 'Renacimiento de la lengua y literaturas cata lanas> (Barcelona); Tubino, 'El renacimiento literario contemporaneo en etc. (Madrid) ; Wolf, 'Proben Portugiesischer and catalanischer Volks-Romanzen)1Vienna).