It’s been a long time –since the appearance of the extraordinary Pere Abelard: a humanist of the 12th century by Lluís Nicolau d’Olwer, which was published in 2016– that I haven’t had such a great time with a book. You will say: what fly has bitten Guillamon? What a pleasure a book full of erudition and wisdom, written in a simple way, accompanying readers, inviting them to understand the greatness of an author, laughing with them (author and readers), presenting poems written more than four hundred years ago as if they were a modern poet would have written. This is what Albert Rossich, Emeritus Professor of Catalan Philology at the University of Girona, a great specialist in Catalan Baroque literature and author of the volume Poesia eròtica i pornogràfica catalana del segle XVII (1985), which is a volume, achieves in this sensational book. reference book from the golden age of Quaderns Crema.
I will try to convince you with a couple of selected examples. The Sonnet 5. There is a long tradition of poems that speak of the beginning of the day, comparing the physics of sunrise with mythological figures. Francesc Vicent Garcia joins her. “Los raigs de l’Orient desembeinava/ Apol lo irat ”: the rays of the sun come out as if they were the arrows of the classical god, bringing truth and poetry to the people. In Tartarus, which is the kingdom of darkness, they are already trembling. The Titans boil underground, bellows Neptune. Peneus, Daphne’s father (he turned her into a laurel to prevent Apollo from laying his hands on her), hides like a rabbit. The nymphs, who know how Apollo spends them, plunge terrified and roll through the meadows, helpless from their friends the fauns. What a picture. It is as if you were watching them: Apollo appears, gods and nymphs hide. I’ll explain it to you colloquially to make you laugh a little, but it’s about some beautiful verses, some verses… as a joke. The entire poem is written with the finest ambiguity. It could be a poem à la mode if it weren’t for the somewhat exaggerated, theatrical, cardboard-stone tone. That is so beautiful… Then comes the final verse, which turns the poem around, like a tortilla, and with which you laugh: “Mon, what is it that I donate to all cremation? ”
Can you imagine a poem or a prose text written like this today? It would be awesome. A poem that would imitate Enric Casasses, a report like those of Anna Pazos, a chapter like those of Irene Solà. That when you were up to your neck in the style of the poem or the report – the more applauded, the more exaggerated – I would tell you, with a gracefully written verse: and what does it matter to me. Rossich is right: between the baroque and us there is not that much distance. Relativism, humor, a taste for paradox. And, of course, the mess.
What funny pig poems Francesc Vicent Garcia wrote. And how they hold up over the years. Of the centuries! Another example: Sonnet 11, which talks about the falling in love between a friar and a nun. To begin with, he drops that they had already had sex, but it cannot be proven. Therefore, let’s continue. At the gate of a convent “the most fleshy of Fra Hilari/ amb la de sor Mirlada, who is from vori” got stuck. Night falls and the bride and groom go to bed, but alas! each to his own, many miles away. “Both Basques each one in son llit rabia,/ i, at the end, the married consummate/ somiant the two a mateixa thing.” It’s the same idea as the song by Chiquete: “He doesn’t even realize that I’ve gotten him/ The warm kisses he hasn’t asked me for/ That on my sad nights deserted from sleep/ In my crazy desire I feel like his owner.” Or put another way, it is a poem about masturbation. Forgive the comparison, Dr. Rossich, but perhaps it will help to understand the teacher.
Josep Vicent Garcia, rector of Vallfogona (Zaragoza, 1579-Vallfogona de Riucorb, 1623), has been the scapegoat of the Catalan Baroque for many years. That if he was a villager, that if he wrote a Castilianized Catalan, that if he represented the decadence of Catalan literature and culture, that if he could not be compared with his contemporary Castilian poets. Rossich, who has had the support of Editorial Barcino and the Fundació Carulla, demolishes all this legend and draws, with an elegance that has made me think of Nicolau d’Olwer, a fascinating, cultured, mocking character, a great poet related to the nobility of his time. I am so happy that to celebrate his triumphant return I will play the March for the Ceremony of the Turks by Jean-Baptiste Lully in the version by Jordi Savall. Long live the baroque!
