Catalan Literature Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Catalan Literature - Essay ExampleRoigs recognition of the female as both carrier and purveyor of Catalonian language, traditions, myths, history and nationalism was circumstantially predetermined by the experiences of this quasi-national community during the Franco years. To understand Roigs whole kit and caboodle as something otherwise than a feminist treatise and to fully appreciate their complexity, an understanding of the politically history which informed and incited them, is necessary. In brief, throughout the four decades of General Francos dictatorship, the Catalan community, as were the Andalusia, Basque and Castilian, was oppressed through the governments determined efforts to forcibly impose the Spanish culture and language upon all. The Catalan language and culture were outlawed, with the hope be that their de-legitimisation would, over the generations and years, lead to their obliteration. Both, however, were kept alive within the private and feminine space of the h ome and, both were kept alive through the efforts of Catalans women. It was, thus, that Catalonian women played a fundamental role, not only in the rescuing of the national culture and historical memory but, in the survival of Catalonia herself.Within the socio-political history which informs Montserrat Roigs works lays the key to the understanding of her literary productions. Binary oppositions assume political significance, with the private representing the national space and the public symbolising the oppressive dominance of Francos Spain with the private and the feminine representing oppressed and the public and the male symbolising the oppressor. Indeed, as one who lived during Catalonias traumatic linguistic and cultural experiences under Franco, Roigs works can only be fully understood from this perspective and can only be fully appreciated as a product of a literary mind which, itself, had