" Addressing Fear and Grief: Alchemico-Llullian Signs in Donne's Sermon(s) for the Churching of the Countess of Bridgewater "
by Roberta Albrecht

This study recontextualizes two of Donne's churching sermons according to the Llullian mnemotechnics that were so fashionable in his age. It investigates how Donne's public audience (composed of radical Calvinists, Arminians, and Roman sympathizers) and his private audience (composed of members and friends of the Bridgewater family) were predisposed to respond to his text. It employs Llull's triadic and correlative principles and Llullian concepts of grammar in order to show how many understood the signs diffused throughout the sermons. Donne provided the alchemico-Llullian signs, knowing that his congregation would match the nouns (which Llull defined as “the nature of things”) with the verbs (which Llull defined as “how things exist or operate”) in order to construct their own sentences. In this manner, each member of Donne's congregation was able to compose a statement of his or her own values. Three recurring signs—the ark, the rainbow, and rest—illustrate how Donne's pseudo-Llullian mnemotechnics work. All three translate into some version of “the title promis'd them the Land.” As an olive branch, these sermons offer peace to religious and political antagonists and consolation to those who, for various reasons, seem to have lost all hope of their “ Rest .”

" Taking Back the Thread: Myth Revision in Rodoreda's ‘Secret' Odyssey Poems "
by Nicole Altamirano

While Mercè Rodoreda is frequently recognized as the most famous novelist in Catalan, her poetry remains virtually unexplored. Written after the Civil War led Rodoreda to flee her Catalonian homeland for France in 1939, the poems of Món d'Ulisses do not focus on the eponymous hero's longing to return home; rather, the poet shifts viewpoint to that of the women Ulysses leaves behind. By enabling them to tell their own version of the Mediterranean epic, concentrating on their private experience of exile, their expressions of absence, anger, and isolation, Rodoreda reevaluates and revises classical myths of the feminine in a testament to women's experience of loss.

" Absències en els diccionaris: llacunes lèxiques i llacunes lexicogràfiques en els substantius deverbals del sufix - itzar "
by Elisenda Bernal

 Word formation through the suffix -ció , as long as a verb has previously been formed with the suffix -itzar , appears to be fairly frequent. This notwithstanding, looking over the current data included in dictionaries one realizes that not all verbs derived through -itzar show the corresponding deverbal noun with –ció ; and conversely, not all nouns ending in -ització in the dictionary include an entry as well for their previous verb in -itzar . In the wake of this discrepancy, this paper aims to determine whether these gaps are due to lexicographic?more or less justifiable?reasons, or whether these lexical blanks could not have been foreseen. In the latter case, we attempt to show how these are caused by a semantic incompatibility between the noun serving as the basis for the verb and the ensuing nominalization of that verb. If the noun has the meaning of “action” or “process,” the possibility to create the deverbal noun is eliminated (hence, i.e. diàlisi prevents the formation of * dialització ). Furthermore, the inclusion of linguistic information in dictionaries is briefly discussed and consideration is given to the possible ways to transfer that information effectively, with a view to providing words and their interrelations with more thorough definitions.

" Montserrat Roig's El temps de les cireres : A Nostalgic Look at the Past "
by Andrew Deiser

In Postmodernism or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism , Fredric Jameson speaks to the legitimacy of the claim that we have entered the postmodern era. He also notes, however, that cultural artifacts often contain elements of a previous social structure while, at the same time, revealing one in its early stages of development. In this article I argue that Montserrat Roig's 1977 novel, El temps de les cireres , supports Jameson's premise. Through the motifs of photography and time, Roig not only chronicles some of the significant social changes took place in Barcelona during the 1960s and 1970s, she also conjures up the city's more remote past for an older generation that had been denied it, as well as for a younger generation that no longer recognized it. In so doing, her novel not only documents events leading up to Spain's transition to democracy, it also grapples with the broader historical transition from modernity to postmodernity in Spain.

" The Catholic Church in Catalonia. From Cataclysm in the Civil War to the “ Euphoria ” of the 1950s "
by Andrew Dowling

In the summer of 1936, with the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, the Catalan Church underwent a ferocious assault, without precedent in modern European history . Catalan society in the early decades of the twentieth century had been divided over its relationship to the Catholic Church, with some sectors being profoundly anti-clerical. Yet by the early 1960s, attitudes towards the Catholic Church had changed. This art icle is concerned with reconstructing Catalan and Catalanist Catholicism from one of profound crisis during the Civil War to its re-emergence from the confines of Spanish National Catholicism. Francoist victory in the Spanish Civil War meant the ending of indigenous Catholic traditions. However, from the mid-1940s we can trace the slow reconstruction of Catalan traditions, language and culture. All of the major expressions of Catalan identity until the 1960s were enabled due to this Catholic patronage. Whilst the Church was unable to reverse secularization trends, this involvement in cultural activity would transform its place within wider Catalan society. By the end of the period examined in this art icle, historic and deep rooted anti-clericalism in Catalonia was ending.

" La poesia catalana de postguerra en el context hispànic "
by Joaquim Espinós

The diverse literary expressions comprised in the concept “Hispanic literature”—Catalan, Castilian, and Basque as well as the literature from Galicia—form a polysystem of great hermeneutical possibilities, according to the model proposed by Itamar Even-Zohar. A common historic and institutional context gives cohesion to this polysystem, but the existence of particular national traditions introduces differences within it. The study that we present in this article centers on a precise time and genre—post Civil War poetry—and should be considered as another aspect of this vast analytic territory, which could be extended to other periods and other genres. The Castilian system has been at the center of the polysystem, due in large part to political factors. In the 1960s Castilian hegemony gives rise to a form of polycentrism that would have its most innovative and dynamic foci in Castilian and Catalan literatures respectively. The symbolism-realism dialectic—inherited from the pre-War time—extends across the entire period. Francoist repression produced a politicization of literary creation that subordinated formal aspects to the will to denounce. The realist repertoire, which except for the Basque system manifested mainly in exile, is the principal cohesive factor of the Hispanic systems. When this closed code automates itself in the 1960s, codes that had been marginalized emerge.

" Catalan Television Documentaries and the Works of Dolors Genovès: The Negotiation of Memory in Democratic Spain "
by Isabel Estrada

This paper analyzes the ways in which recent Catalan television documentaries, p art icularly those directed by Dolors Genovés and the team of Montse Armengou and Ricard Belis for TV3, depict Spain 's traumatic past and p art icipate in public debates about memory. I argue that Armengou and Belis's documentaries attempt to construct a totalizing and coherent historical narrative while manipulating the spectators' emotions in order to further political agendas that depict the debate as only two-sided. Genovès's documentaries, on the other hand, effectively eschew Manichean discourse and distinguish themselves by illustrating a process through which history is constructed by the reappearance and recurrence of the traumatic event and the difficulty of comprehending it.

" El mètode Grönholm o la submissió a les modernitats líquides "
by Anton Pujol

From the moment El mètode Grönholm first opened as part of Projecte T-6 (2003), a breeding ground for new playwrights, it became a cultural phenomenon in Barcelona. This play by Jordi Galceran enjoyed a successful and record-breaking run at the Teatre Poliorama under the subtle direction of Sergi Belbel. In addition to garnering critical praise the play also achieved the success that Catalan audiences usually reserve for more commercial offerings and rarely for a new work. The plot revolves around four candidates for an executive-level position at a multinational company. The application and interview process the candidates must undergo soon turns into a twisted psychological game where reality and fiction merge while a corrosive power struggle takes place until the surprising ending. This essay analyzes how Galceran's text acerbically critiques the new Catalan society whose ascension has coincided with the arrival of socio-economic policies that have not only transformed the city but also forced its citizens to adapt rapidly to a brand new set of rules — the realm of liquid modernity as coined by Zygmunt Bauman. By infusing his play with copious references to a Catalunya that cannot handle the transition and the depravity of the present, the playwright simply retells a story that mirrors the process his audience undergoes daily amid the aseptic and überdesigned space named Barcelona.

" An Unbalanced Trilingualism: Linguistic Ideologies at the University of Barcelona” "
by Carles de Rosselló and Emili Boix-Fuster

Due to the heterogeneous origin of university students and the diverse language use guidelines in their departments, as well as the peculiar language contact that takes place in the territory of Catalonia, the University of Barcelona is one of the most linguistically complex universities of the occidental world. Catalan, Spanish and English are seen as enriching elements although dissenting voices do arise concerning the use of each of these languages. For this reason, we carried out a qualitative study, asking thirty-two students of the University of Barcelona (UB), the first Catalan University , how they perceive and face the challenges of their sociolinguistic environment. Briefly, in this article we study—in the first place—how students view the fact that English is becoming a language of instruction; and secondly, we analyse the main arguments that local students use to justify their linguistic ideology regarding Erasmus students.

" La segona persona comparada: El pobre Randall Jarrell i Gabriel Ferrater, cara a cara "
by Edgar Tello Garcia

The aim of this paper is to study the second person pronoun in the poetry of Randall Jarrell and Gabriel Ferrater. The main thesis goes against the commonplace that holds that the second person pronoun is a mere trace dependent on the poetic I . As we shall demonstrate, the You is absent or evanescent, and its relation to I cannot be reciprocal but shifting. Since both poets were conspicuous literary critics this article first draws up an outline of the possible theoretical implications for selecting that voice. The commentary on their poems is divided into four sections taking up Genette's concept of palimpsest. Based on a comparison of Ferrater's “La cara” and Jarrell's “The Face,” second person clues lead us to comment on the different reading conventions they could have considered before writing a poem. The third section analyzes the second person anchorage, conceived less as an imprisoning structure than as an impossibility of naming (reading) the You properly. Studies of “Well water” and “Si puc” show how naming things that are open to the senses is the only way we can indirectly glimpse, reconstruct or interpret the original relation between first and second person pronouns — a relation we cannot help thinking of as the real —rather than phantasmal—overlapping realism.

" Ab les mans junctes e genolls en terra : Intercession and the Notion of Queenship in Late Medieval Catalonia "
by Dawn Bratsch-Prince

Did medieval women who wore the crown share a common notion of queenship or recognize their own membership in a privileged group? Throughout medieval Europe the most salient images of queenship were those of wife, mother, and intercessor, familiar to the general population through Biblical and literary sources. This essay suggests that medieval Mediterranean queens were, in fact, aware of the power and influence that their role as intercessor afforded them. Two texts composed by the Aragonese queen Violant de Bar are used to shed light on a notion of queenship seemingly understood by her contemporaries, both male and female. The proemi or prologue of the queen's address on judicial reform to the Catalano-Aragonese corts generals of 1388-1389 and a lengthy letter (1421) to queen María of Castile reference the responsibilities of the queen in mediating tensions and hostilities between the king and his rivals. From these documents, one gleans that queenship in early fifteenth-century Mediterranean Europe appears to have been viewed by its practitioners as a divinely-appointed office that entailed grave responsibility, as well as influence, by means of its emphasis on intercession.

" A Strain of Senequismo in Late-Medieval Literature of the Catalan Domain: The Case of Fra Francesc Moner (1463-1492)” "
by Peter Cocozzella

This essay is an exploration of Seneca's influence on the bilingual (Catalan and Castilian) production, including poems and prose works, of Fra Francesc Moner, an extraordinarily talented Catalan writer of the late Middle Ages. After sampling Moner's pithy renditions of Seneca's sententious rhetoric, this essay delves into Moner's assimilation of the salient topics and motifs that distinguish the Stoic philosophical system of Senecan vintage. The essay takes into account, particularly, some points of coincidence between Moner's senequismo and that of Ausiàs March, the incomparable Valencian poet of the first half of the fifteenth century. An analysis of these coincidences suggests that Moner inherits from March a keen sensitivity to the metaphysical bond between the literary text as an icon of subjectivity and the moment-to-moment unfolding of human existence.

" Text as Faith in Andrés de Li's Thesoro de la passion "
by Laura Delbrugge

Andrés de Li, an Aragonese converso, authored three extensive works from 1492 to1494. This essay explores issues of authorial motivation in Li's Thesoro de la passion (1494), in particular practical considerations of marketability and product niche in the early devotional market. Textual evidence reveals a dynamic working relationship between Li and his Humanist printer, Pablo Hurus, offering a glimpse of the early Iberian printing industry. The essay also explores issues of authorial motivation in light of Li's religious identity, and how his desire to be accepted as a true Christian may have been a factor in both topic selection and in his inclusion of all typical Passion text elements, including anti-Semitic assumptions and conclusions. The nature of Li's “ converso voice” within the Thesoro is also explored within the larger framework of the converso studies critical apparatus.

" Theatrical Representations of St. Christopher throughout the Crown of Aragon during the Middle Ages "
by Anthony J. Grubbs

As the patron of travelers, St. Christopher inspired one of the most popular cults to spread throughout medieval Europe. The Iberian Peninsula was no exception: his gigantic following spanned the region and his image adorned the walls of most churches and cathedrals. Manifestations were not limited to the plastic arts, however, and paratheatrical representations of St. Christopher were fairly common in processions celebrating Corpus Christi and other religious holidays, especially in Valencia, where the saint enjoyed even greater esteem. Furthermore, the mystery of his conversion and martyrdom was also staged during religious festivals during the fifteenth century. This essay traces the evolution of the hugely popular cult of St. Christopher in medieval Iberia by looking at various artistic (re)presentations of the converted Canaanite, paying special attention to the Valencian processions and two extant autos sacramentales —one written in Valencian and the other in Castilian.

" Ramon Llull's Rethorica nova 2.7 and Proverbis d'ensenyament 175-225: An Example of Lullian Compilatio "
by Mark D. Johnston

Modern scholars studying the oeuvre of Ramon Llull have labored for over a century to establish the chronology and filiation of his more than three hundred separate writings, in order to establish their discrete sequence and relationships as “sources” to one another. For some of his works, this labor has proven simply futile: Llull's habit of recycling his own material, expressed in the idiosyncratic vocabulary of his Great Universal Art, and in several languages (Arabic, Catalan, Latin) makes it impossible to determine which versions of his material are “original.” A small, but illustrative, example of this problem are section 2.7 from his Latin Rethorica nova and items 175-225 from his Proverbis d'ensenyament . Comparison of these texts suggests that each is simply a Lullian exercise of compilatio , the recycling of material that in fact organizes his entire oeuvre, and that we should recognize this tactic of composition as pervasive and fundamental to all his writings.

" Trovas lemosinas or Llengua catalana : Majaderos de Castilla and the Many Names for the Catalan Language "
by John Scott Lucas

Previous attempts to understand the usage of the terms Catalan, Provençal, Occitan, and Limousin and the languages these designations represent have fallen short of any real analysis. Most scholars to date have either presented historical data without linguistic explication or have attempted to use the data to argue for particular political views on the question of Catalan and its many names. The present study of the names used for Catalan in different regions and at different times helps us understand the relationship of diglossia that existed between the Occitan and Catalan languages for about two hundred years and bears witness to the emergence of linguistic consciousness in Catalonia and in Valencia from the early Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century.

" Mary Magdalene's Iconographical Redemption in Isabel de Villena's Vita Christi and the Speculum Animae "
by Montserrat Piera

This study will examine the depiction of Mary Magdalene in two late 15 th century Valencian Passion texts: Vita Christi and Speculum Animae . The first text is known to have been composed by Isabel de Villena. The second, Speculum Animae , is a profusely illustrated manuscript mistakenly thought to have been authored also by Isabel de Villena and which, until its recent rediscovery by Albert Hauf, had not been seen by anyone since 1761. This essay will consider two aspects of the portrayal of Mary Magdalene in these two texts: first, why and how the authors underscore the importance of Mary Magdalene in their account of Christ's passion and, secondly, the way in which the treatment of Mary Magdalene activates in the intended reader (mostly an audience of cloistered nuns) a desire either to imitate or to resist the set of beliefs or ideology transmitted by the readings.

" Francesc Eiximenis and the Encyclopedic Future: Eiximenis as Prognosticator/on Prognostication "
by Donna S. Rogers

In his vernacular texts, Francesc Eiximenis often ventured to make predictions—sometimes on minor matters, occasionally on the future of entire kingdoms—despite his own uneasiness on the subject of prognostication in general. Despite the apparent contradiction implicit in this behavior, Eiximenis seems to have made a distinction between the concepts of foreknowledge and sorcery, rejecting outright any attempt to use the black art of necromancy to usurp God's divine control over the actions of man.

" On the Scent of Mary: The Power of Perfume in the Espill "
by Lesley Twomey

This article examines Roig's use of perfumed items as a way of typifying the Virgin's immaculate nature. It examines how perfumes were embedded in early conception liturgies, particularly Leonardo de Nogarola's office, written with papal approval in the late 1470s. Perfumes were used for a variety of reasons, such as in religious ceremonies, to embalm, and to adorn the bride for her nuptials. These uses are examined and their application to the nature of the Virgin determined. Finally, the uses of perfumes in Roig's household, for medical and household purposes, are described. The essay concludes that Roig may have been surrounded by the very perfumes he incorporates into his Espill , even as he wrote it.