Title: “ Catalan Letters to Teixeira de
Pascoaes
and the Drive to Reconfigure the Cultural
Dynamics of the Iberian Peninsula.
Abstract: I propose to use the three-year Faculty Research Expense Grant to defray the costs of doing archival research necessary for the completion of a critical edition (with an extensive introductory essay) of the correspondence between Catalan nationalist intellectuals and the Portuguese poet and theorist of national identity, Teixeira de Pascoaes. I believe that the proposed study will, in addition to revealing the existence of an important yet previously overlooked discourse of Iberian pluralism, help to advance the ongoing search to develop new critical paradigms within early twentieth century hispanism and offer valuable new perspectives on the problem of constructing a multi-cultural yet politically cohesive Iberia in the broader context of a united Europe.
For more than a half century, the
Generation of '98 has stood as the dominant paradigm for organizing and classifying
early twentieth century Spanish writing. And yet for at least the last half of
that time the concept's comprehensiveness and general theoretical rigor have
been widely questioned. A number of scholars, most notable among them John
Butt, made the convincing case that the concept was congenitally flawed and
thus in need of replacement. While many seem to have agreed with the general
thrust of Butt's arguments, no comprehensive new paradigm for studying turn of
the century writing has emerged in the time since his article was published
nearly two decades ago.
It would appear, however, that at least two of the more stubborn impediments to developing such a new framework have begun to fade away in more recent years. The first of these is the belief that the study of literary texts can and should be divorced from an analysis of the social environment in which they were produced. The second is the notion that nationhood and national identity are anachronistic concepts that have little place in serious academic analysis. As hispanists have begun to return to the study of literature's social context and to admit the continuing pull of national identity in the lives of twentieth century writers and non-writers alike, they have begun to recognize that the "concern with the Castilian landscape" that has so often been cited as a defining feature of the Generation of '98 was not, as it has often been presented, just an esthetic fashion or a by-product of a national festival of introspection, but rather an affirmative and somewhat combative response by a group of Madrid-centered "public intellectuals" to the widespread perception that the long-standing Castilian cultural and political hegemony of the peninsula was under threat from the resurgent movements of national identity in Catalonia, Galicia, and the Basque country, and from a revitalized and explicitly anti-Castilian nationalism in Portugal. This gradual change of scholarly perspective has resulted in the publication of important studies (Labanyi, Fox) showing that the task of reaffirming and/or reconstructing a positive concept of Castilian nationhood was indeed a fundamental motivation for certain members of the so-called Generation of '98. What would still appear to be missing, however, is an integrated study that includes not only an analysis of these Castilian efforts at literary "nation-building", but also a nuanced view of the entire peninsular dynamic that provoked them. As the terms of these intra-peninsular dialogues (both real and figurative) become more clearly defined, so too will the basic parameters of the region's main "fields of cultural production" (Bourdieu) or "national literary systems" (Even-Zohar). With the establishment of these descriptive categories as analytical building blocks, hispanists may finally be in a position to supplant the vague and overly Castilian-centered notion of the Generation of '98 with a dynamic, integrated and multi-polar theoretical framework for organizing the literary production of writers from all of the culture nations of the peninsula during this period.
Catalan Nationalism and the
(Re) Birth of Iberianism
Between 1868 (when the so-called
“Glorious Revolution” occurred in Spain) and the mid-1920s (when authoritarian
dictatorships were established in both countries) the institutional structures
governing both Spanish and Portuguese society changed with frequency and
rapidity, owing, at least in part, to the measure to the abrupt changes in the
colonial mission of both countries. These sudden and parallel changes provoked
new efforts to reconfigure the long-standing bipartite structure of
intra-iberian relations. In the 1870s
and 1880s the most radical overtures in this realm came from Portugal in the
form of Iberian Federalism, espoused by well-known members of Portugal’s
Generation of 70 such as Antero de Quental, Oliveira Martins and Teófilo Braga.
As César Antonio Molina and others have shown these political dreams seem to
have spurred the creation of important contacts between Portuguese writers and
their homologues in both Galicia and Castile. However, owing to the strong
patriotic reaction to the British Ultimatum in Portugal in 1890, the scope of
these intellectual interchanges was curtailed considerably during the following
decade. When Iberianism emerged once again as relatively well-subscribed
political concept in the first decade of the new century, both its theoretical
underpinnings and its geographical point of radiation were quite different.
Faced with the need to allay the fears of those in the central government who
saw his nationalist project as little more than an ad hoc grab for power, the head of the Catalan Lliga (the
Catalanism’s dominant political party) Prat de la Riba wrote in his
landmark nationalist catechism (La Nacionalitat Catalana 1906) about the
need to create a new Iberian Federation which would include Portugal, and in
this way, establish Catalonia as primus inter pares among the major
“naturally constituted” culture nations of the Peninsula. While there is ample
reason to believe that Prat's enthusiasm for this political union of the
peninsular peoples was somewhat less than sincere, the overall appeal of his
nationalist vision was so intense among the Catalan intellectual class that
important numbers of this group immediately began establishing links with their
counterparts in the dominant movement of
Portuguese cultural nationalism,
Renascença Portuguesa.
Two years ago, Víctor Martinez-Gil of the Autonomous University of
Barcelona produced the first in-depth analysis Luso-Catalan intellectual
relations during this period. While extremely useful in terms of tracing the
development of the new Catalanist Iberianist ideology up until 1906, the study
does not in any way scrutinize the “cultural commerce” that resulted from this
new cultural/political program over the next two decades. My edition of the
correspondence written by Catalan intellectuals to the acknowledged leader of Renascença Portuguesa, Teixeira de
Pascoaes (as well as a limited number of ancillary documents to documents to
fellow members of Renascença Portuguesa) is designed to open up a window for
the detailed consideration of this important set of cultural transactions. By
examining this correspondence which begins in 1913 and continues intensely into
the mid 1920s a number of things become readily apparent. The first and most
notable is the programmatic thrust of the Catalan writers. It is clear that
their interest in Portugal is motivated by a desire to construct a radically
new model of cultural coexistence in the peninsula, one that places great
emphasis on the combined Catalan/Portuguese ability (the Galicians are included
in the Portuguese bloc) to hold the long-dominant Castilian center in check.
Secondly it provides us with fascinating insight into the process through which
much of “the canon of Portuguese
Literature for Spaniards” was formed. Even today the number of texts translated
from Portuguese literature into Castilian or Catalan is fairly limited. Much of
what there is in this repertoire of texts (leaving aside recent translations of
very contemporary works) can be traced back to the set of ideologically motivated
personal relationships that are revealed in this correspondence. Finally, and
perhaps most importantly, the correspondence provides us with a great deal of
insight into intense battle between what might be termed essentialists and pluralists
for the heart and soul of the Catalanist movement in the first quarter of this
century, a confrontation that, as I have argued elsewhere, has long been
overlooked despite its clear relevance to the present-day political and
cultural skirmishes in the now autonomous Catalan region of Spain.
Two Distinct Branches of a Single Movement
As mentioned earlier, Prat de la Riba’s original conception of the Iberian Federation was for him, and a certain sector of his group of intellectual collaborators, little more than a rhetorical means of furthering the one and only real aim of their program: the fullest possible recovery of Catalan legal, political cultural and linguistic prerogatives. Opposing this highly opportunistic and essentially monocultural approach to Catalan affairs was another group of Catalanist intellectuals who accepted as “normative” the bilingual nature of their own region and hence the possibility of peacefully “hybridizing” the Peninsula as a whole, not only through the culture commerce between its Portuguese, Catalan and Castilian-speaking sectors (within which the Basque Country was included), but also through the importation of translated texts from a broad variety of European and Latin American cultural traditions. For nearly 20 years, Jordi Pujol, who has never made any secret of his the fact that his world view has began guided by the ideas and tactics of Prat de la Riba, has served as President of the Catalan Generalitat (the Autonomous Government established in 1980). One of the prime goals of the Pujol administration in the realm of culture has been to resuscitate, and to present in more or less monolingual terms, the cultural legacy of the cadre nationalist activists associated with the great turn-of-the-century nation-builder. Lost in the process is the extremely rich legacy of the pluralist branch of the Catalanist movement. My edition of the correspondence between Catalans and Pascoaes will, through its revelation of the extremely coherent structure of the intellectual circle surrounding Catalan poet, translator and editor Fernando Maristany, provide a fresh basis for studying this alternative cultural project, and in this way, add a valuable historical dimension to current debates on the reconfiguration of an Iberian “Peninsula of Nations” within the context of a united Europe.
Current Status of the Project and the Need
for Institutional Support
In 1996, I was awarded a grant of $1200
from the Spanish Government's Program for Cultural Cooperation to explore
"Intercultural Relations and Literary Transfer in the Iberian Peninsula
1900-1925". I used these funds to travel to the Pascoaes library in
Amarante, Portugal to review and photocopy the majority of the Catalan correspondence to the Portuguese
writer. These archival findings have
contributed directly to the presentation of three conference papers "When the Mediterranean Flowed Across
Castile to the Atlantic: Relations Between Catalan Noucentisme and Portuguese Saudosismo 1900-1925." "Parallels of Function and Thought in Eugeni d'Ors and Leonardo
Coimbra, two 'Nationalist Philosophers' of the Iberian Periphery.”
"Bridging the Peninsular Divides: Enrique Díez-Canedo and Fernando
Maristany as Agents of Iberian Cultural Commerce.” one invited lecture ("Nationalist Pedagogies: 'Cultural
Commerce'Between Catalonia and Portugal 1900-1925.” and one journal article
("Invenciones de Españas.") Last spring, the Lisbon-based publishing
house of Assirio & Alvim accepted my proposal to publish a critical edition
of the correspondence with the proviso that I/we find a co-publisher for the
project in Catalonia, a task that I undertook immediately. In addition to
seeking a Catalan partner for the project, I am presently transcribing and
annotating through an historically informed close-reading the correspondence in
my possession. In the course of this work I have encountered numerous
references to periodical articles, literary works and parallel sets of letters
that are absolutely essential for a full understanding of the main object of
the correspondence, especially the long-overlooked production of the Maristany
Circle. Most are only available in private archives and public library
collections in Catalonia and Portugal. I plan to use the three-year travel
grant of $8090 to defray the cost of
2 separate journeys to the sites
(Barcelona and Lisbon) of these collections are found (as well as the extensive
photocopying that I will need to do once there) as well as one trip to
Catalonia this spring or early summer during which I will meet with both
publishers and cultural institutions about publishing and funding the final
product. (Personal meetings such as these are invaluable in the Spanish
context).
Bourdieu, Pierre. The Field of
Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Criticism. ed. by Randal Johnson.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
Butt, John.
"'The Generation of '98': A Critical Fallacy?" Forum for Modern
Language Studies XVI, 1 (1980) 136-153.
Even-Zohar, Itamar. "A función da
literatura na creación das nacións de Europa" Grial 120, Tomo XXXI
(1993) 441-458
----------. "Polysystem
Studies" Poetics Today
II(1) Spring 1990. 1-268
Fox, E. Inman. Spain
as Castile: the Invention of a National Culture. Chicago: Working paper no.
4 of the Spanish Studies Round Table, 1993
Labanyi, Jo.
"Nation, Narration, Naturalization: A Barthesian Critique of the 1898
Generation" in New Hispanisms: Literature, Culture, Theory Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1994 127-149
Martínez-Gil, Víctor. El Naixement de l’Iberisme Catalanista.
Barcelona: Curial, 1997.
Molina, Cesar A. Sobre el iberismo.
Madrid: Akal, 1990.
Prat de la Riba, Enric. La
Nacionalitat Catalana. Barcelona: La Magrana, 1993.
Appendix 3
I.
Services
Photocopying
(@$400 per year) $1200
II.
Travel
A.
Air fare (estimated)
I.
Barcelona (Early Summer 2000) $900
II.
Lisbon (Fall 2000 or early 2001) $900
III.
Barcelona (Late 2001, early 2002) $900
B.
Ground transportation @$160 x 3 $480
C.
Per diem expenses
I. Barcelona @$110 x 7 $770
II.
Lisbon @$100 x 14 $1400
III.
Barcelona @110 x 14 $1540
Total:
$8090