Joaquim Ruyra i Oms (
Catalan pronunciation: ">’uəˈkim ruˈi.ɾə 27 September 1858 – 15 May 1939) was a
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
short-story writer, poet and translator, considered a key figure in modern
Catalan literature
Catalan literature is the name conventionally used to refer to literature written in the Catalan language. The focus of this article is not just the literature of Catalonia, but literature written in Catalan from anywhere, so that it includes writ ...
and one of the great
narrators of the 20th century.
Besides his literary work, he was also aware of
linguistics
Linguistics is the science, scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure ...
and participed in the
First International Congress of Catalan Language (1906). In 1918, he entered the Philological Section of the
Institut d'Estudis Catalans
The Institute for Catalan Studies ( ca, Institut d'Estudis Catalans, ), also known by the acronym IEC, is an academic institution which seeks to undertake research and study into "all elements of Catalan culture". It is based in Barcelona, Catalon ...
, the academic institution responsible for standardizing the
Catalan language
Catalan (; autonym: , ), known in the Valencian Community and Carche as ''Valencian'' (autonym: ), is a Western Romance language. It is the official language of Andorra, and an official language of three autonomous communities in eastern ...
, where he collaborated with
Pompeu Fabra
Pompeu Fabra i Poch (; Grà cia, Barcelona, 20 February 1868 – Prada de Conflent, 25 December 1948) was a Spanish engineer and grammarian. He was the main author of the normative reform of contemporary Catalan language.
Life
Pompeu Fabra w ...
and others in the making of a unified linguistic system.
Life
Descending from rural owners and lawyers, he studied law in the
University of Barcelona
The University of Barcelona ( ca, Universitat de Barcelona, UB; ; es, link=no, Universidad de Barcelona) is a public university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia, in Spain. With 63,000 students, it is one of the biggest universities i ...
between 1875 and 1881, but never practised to dedicate himself completely to literature. Ruyra spent most of his childhood and youth between Girona and the coastal town of
Blanes
Blanes () is a town and municipality in the comarca of Selva in Girona, Catalonia, Spain. During Roman rule it was named Blanda or Blandae. It is known as the "Gateway to the Costa Brava". Its coast is part of the Costa Brava, which stretches ...
, in the ''
comarca
A ''comarca'' (, or , or ) is a traditional region or local administrative division found in Portugal, Spain and some of their former colonies, like Brazil, Nicaragua, and Panama. The term is derived from the term ''marca'', meaning a "march, ...
'' (county) of
la Selva, where he settled after marrying Teresa de Llinàs in 1889, although the couple also had a residence in Barcelona and
Arenys de Mar
Arenys de Mar (, ''arenys'' being Catalan for "sands (of a seasonal creek)", and ''de mar'' for "by the sea" as opposed to Arenys de Munt, "sands up hill") is one of the main municipalities of the comarca of Maresme, Barcelona Province, Cataloni ...
.
Blanes became the main location of his works and there he came into contact with the local dialect (''salat'') and the genuine spoken language of
fishermen
A fisher or fisherman is someone who captures fish and other animals from a body of water, or gathers shellfish.
Worldwide, there are about 38 million commercial and subsistence fishers and fish farmers. Fishers may be professional or recreati ...
and
peasant
A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasant ...
s, that afterwards he incorporated into his writings. In an interview with
Tomàs Garcés in 1926, Ruyra said:
''Blanes is my history, my homeland, the place for which I have greatest affection. I have lived there almost all my life. I got married there, my parents died there. It is only fair, then, that almost all my memories are of Blanes.''
In the summer of 1928, the
cork oak
''Quercus suber'', commonly called the cork oak, is a medium-sized, evergreen oak tree in the section ''Quercus'' sect. ''Cerris''. It is the primary source of cork for wine bottle stoppers and other uses, such as cork flooring and as the core ...
forests of his propierty in the
Gavarres
Les Gavarres or MassÃs de les Gavarres is a mountain massif in Catalonia, Spain. It is part of the Catalan Coastal Range. The highest point is Puig d'Arques, 532 m. Other important summits are Mare de Déu dels Àngels (485 m) and Santa Pell ...
massif were devastated by a large
wildfire
A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identi ...
. This episode, that affected the wood-and-sea landscape that inspired his major writings, eventually marked the end of his literary career.
During the
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, link ...
he was first dispossessed of his patrimony and later honoured on his 80th birthday with an official ceremony organized by the
Institució de les Lletres Catalanes. He died discreetly in May 1939, in the midst of the war, and was buried in the Blanes municipal cemetery.
Work
![Cala_S'Agulla_(Blanes)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Cala_S%27Agulla_%28Blanes%29.jpg)
Although in his youth he started writing in Spanish, seen at that time as the language for cultural purposes, he soon swifted to his
mother tongue influenced by major poet
Jacint Verdaguer
Jacint Verdaguer i Santaló (; 17 May 1845 – 10 June 1902) was a Catalan / Spanish writer, regarded as one of the greatest poets of Catalan literature and a prominent literary figure of the Renaixença, a cultural revival movement of the ...
—whom he met personally— and participated in the literary life of Barcelona, Blanes, Girona and
Olot, becoming winner of many
Floral Games
Floral Games were any of a series of historically related poetry contests with floral prizes. In Occitan, their original language, and Catalan they are known as '' Jocs florals'' (; modern Occitan: ''Jòcs florals'' , or ''floraus'' ). In French ...
contests (''Jocs florals'') in the 1890s–1900s and collaborating in several
Catalanist
Catalan nationalism is the ideology asserting that the Catalans are a distinct nation.
Intellectually, modern Catalan nationalism can be said to have commenced as a political philosophy in the unsuccessful attempts to establish a federal state i ...
magazines and newspapers (''La Renaixença'', ''
La Veu de Catalunya
''La Veu de Catalunya'' (Catalonia voice) was a Catalan newspaper founded by Enric Prat de la Riba that was published in Barcelona from 1 January 1899 to 8 January 1937, with two editions daily.
It was the press organ for the ideological and po ...
'', ''Joventut'' and others).
Ruyra cultivated many different genres such as narrative, poetry, drama, essay and
literary criticism, but he is best known by the
short stories
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...
included in the volumes ''Marines i boscatges'' (''Seascapes and Woodland Scenes'', 1903), which was some years later extended and republished as ''Pinya de rosa'' (''The End Knot'', 1920), and also ''La parada'' (''The Trap'', 1919). The third volume was ''Entre flames'' (''Among Flames'', 1928), dedicated to those affected by the forest fires in Gavarres, and next year appeared in the press the philosophical narration ''Sociòlegs d'ultratomba'' (''After-death Sociologists'', 1929). Some of these stories have been translated to Spanish, English, French, German and Italian and have been compared with writings by
Herman Melville
Herman Melville ( born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are ''Moby-Dick'' (1851); ''Typee'' (1846), a rom ...
,
Joseph Conrad,
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...
,
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll a ...
, and
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...
.
Ruyra wrote three chapters of an unfinished novel (''La gent del mas Aulet'', 1904), the
short novel ''Les coses benignes'' (''The Benign Things'', 1925) and two poetry anthologies, ''Fulles ventisses'' (''Windy Leaves'', 1919) and ''La cobla'' (''The Cobla'', 1931). Moreover, he also translated French writers like
Erckmann-Chatrian
Erckmann-Chatrian was the name used by French authors Émile Erckmann (1822–1899) and Alexandre Chatrian (1826–1890), nearly all of whose works were jointly written.Mary Ellen Snodgrass, ''Encyclopedia of Gothic Literature''. New York, Facts ...
,
Racine
Jean-Baptiste Racine ( , ) (; 22 December 163921 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille as well as an important literary figure in the Western traditi ...
,
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and worl ...
and
Eugène Scribe
Augustin Eugène Scribe (; 24 December 179120 February 1861) was a French dramatist and librettist. He is known for writing "well-made plays" ("pièces bien faites"), a mainstay of popular theatre for over 100 years, and as the librettist of ma ...
into Catalan.
Influence
![197 Casa arenyenca de Joaquim Ruyra, Rial de sa Clavella 71](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/197_Casa_arenyenca_de_Joaquim_Ruyra%2C_Rial_de_sa_Clavella_71.jpg)
Ruyra was in the vanguard of the
Catalan Modernist
''Modernisme'' (, Catalan for "modernism"), also known as Catalan modernism and Catalan art nouveau, is the historiographic denomination given to an art and literature movement associated with the search of a new entitlement of Catalan cultu ...
generation as they constructed a new literary model after 1860, when the Catalan language became the vehicle of
cultural nationalism
Cultural nationalism is nationalism in which the nation is defined by a shared culture and a common language, rather than on the concepts of common ancestry or race.
Cultural nationalism does not tend to manifest itself in independent movements, ...
.
Although he did not produce a large body of work, his short stories set a stylistic benchmark for Catalan literature—including the shaping of a "landscape canon"—and represent a model use of language that strongly influenced many great Catalan writers, including
Josep Carner
Josep Carner i Puigoriol (; born Barcelona 9 February 1884 - died Brussels 4 June 1970), was a Spanish poet, journalist, playwright and translator. He was also known as ''the Prince of Catalan Poets''.
He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Lit ...
,
Carles Riba
Carles Riba i Bracons (; 23 September 1893 - 12 July 1959) was a Catalan poet, writer and translator of Spanish nationality.
He was born in Barcelona and studied Law and Philosophy at the Universitat de Barcelona. In 1916 he married the poet Cleme ...
,
Josep Pla
Josep Pla i Casadevall (; 8 March 1897 – 23 April 1981) was a Spanish journalist and a popular author. As a journalist he worked in France, Italy, England, Germany and Russia, from where he wrote political and cultural chronicles in Catalan ...
,
Pere Calders and
Mercè Rodoreda.
Salvador Espriu
Salvador Espriu i Castelló (; 10 July 1913 – 22 February 1985) was a Catalan poet.
Biography
Espriu was born in Santa Coloma de Farners, Catalonia, Spain. He was the son of an attorney. He spent his childhood between his home town, Barcelon ...
even declared himself as his literary disciple and stated that Ruyra was "possibly the greatest writer I have known to date in any language".
Nowadays Ruyra's memory is fondly remembered in his hometown Blanes, where the Town Hall promotes a multilingual literary route that explores different sites that inspired and feature in his short stories, such as the
shipyards, the
cove
A cove is a small type of bay or coastal inlet. Coves usually have narrow, restricted entrances, are often circular or oval, and are often situated within a larger bay. Small, narrow, sheltered bays, inlets, creeks, or recesses in a coast are o ...
of Sa Forcanera or the
Sanctuary of El Vilar.
In addition, a
promenade
An esplanade or promenade is a long, open, level area, usually next to a river or large body of water, where people may walk. The historical definition of ''esplanade'' was a large, open, level area outside fortress or city walls to provide cl ...
and a local public school are named after him. In 1958, on the occasion of the centenary of Ruyra's birth, a homage monument was erected in the seafront, and in 1989 a plaque was placed in his family home –known as Can Creus, located on the Main Street– that reads as follows: "Joaquim Ruyra i Oms, devoted son of Blanes and master of Catalan prose". The house where he lived in Arenys de Mar also has a plaque of ceramic in the façade.
Since 1963, the
Enciclopèdia Catalana Foundation and La Galera publishing house award the Joaquim Ruyra Prize of
young adult fiction
Young adult fiction (YA) is a category of fiction written for readers from 12 to 18 years of age. While the genre is primarily targeted at adolescents, approximately half of YA readers are adults.
The subject matter and genres of YA correlate ...
during the Nit de Santa Llúcia ("Saint Lucy's Night"), one of the most important cultural events related to Catalan-language literature.
References
External links
*
Joaquim Ruyra i Oms at the
Association of Catalan-Language Writers website (in Catalan).
Joaquim Ruira at LletrA, Catalan Literature Online (Open University of Catalonia).(in Catalan).
*
Website of the Joaquim Ruyra's Literary Routeby the Blanes Town Hall.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ruyra, Joaquim
1858 births
1939 deaths
Catalan-language writers
Catalan-language poets
Short story writers from Catalonia
People from Girona