Concepcions i discursos sobre la Modernitat en la literatura catalana dels segles XIX i XX

The object of the Project is to study the concepto f "modernity" from its first appearance in the 19th century then its subsequent evolution and diversification in Catalan literatura. Two factors have encouraged us to propose this study: first the generalisation of the concept of "Modernism" in English-language culture, mechanically applied in our own cultural spheres; then "Postmodernism", which has advocated the ending of "modernity" as an aesthetico-social value in itself. These concepts have created confusion and uncertainty, but they have also opened new perspectives from which it is necessary to revise the literary past and the diverse modes of how it is conceptualised. In Catalan culture "modernity" has operated as a substantial myth, inseparable from that culture's aspiration to represent a society which is industrially and socially advanced. It has, consequently, impacted on the organisation and institutionalisation of literary life, on creative language,and even on the construction of literary history. Thus we propose to analyse the acquired a programmatic dimension, thereby having a repercussion in the formation of Literature-as-Institution. Another objective of the project is, at the same time, to review and reinterpret academic discourses in the history of literature that have been generated on the basis of notions of "modernity".