Basque Literary History

Center for Basque Studies Occasional Papers Series, No. 21 Basque Literary History Edited and with a preface by Mari Jose Olaziregi Introduction by Jesús María Lasagabaster Translated by Amaia Gabantxo Center for Basque Studies University of Nevada, Reno Reno, Nevada This book was published with generous financial support from the Basque government. Center for Basque Studies Occasional Papers Series, No. 21 Series Editor: Joseba Zulaika and Cameron J. Watson Center for Basque Studies University of Nevada, Reno Reno, Nevada 89557 http://basque.unr.edu Copyright © 2012 by the Center for Basque Studies All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Cover and Series design © 2012 Jose Luis Agote. Cover Illustration: Juan Azpeitia Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Basque literary history / edited by Mari Jose Olaziregi ; translated by Amaia Gabantxo. p. cm. -- (Occasional papers series ; no. 21) Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: “This book presents the history of Basque literature from its oral origins to present-day fiction, poetry, essay, and children’s literature”--Provided by publisher. ISBN 978-1-935709-19-0 (pbk.) 1. Basque literature--History and criticism. I. Olaziregi, Mari Jose. II. Gabantxo, Amaia. PH5281.B37 2012 899’.9209--dc23 2012030338 Contents Preface . 7 MARI JOSE OLAZIREGI Introduction: Basque Literary History . 13 JESÚS MARÍA LASAGABASTER Part 1 Oral Basque Literature 1. Basque Oral Literature . 25 IGONE ETXEBARRIA 2. The History of Bertsolaritza . 43 JOXERRA GARZIA Part 2 Classic Basque Literature of the Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries 3. The Sixteenth Century: The First Fruits of Basque Literature . 69 AURÉLIE ARCOCHA -SCARCIA and BEÑAT OYHARÇABAL 4. The Seventeenth Century: The Publishing and Development of Septentrional Basque Letters . 89 AURÉLIE ARCOCHA -SCARCIA and BEÑAT OYHARÇABAL 5. The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: Bridge across Borders............ 109 JEAN HARITSCHELHAR Part 3 Modern Basque Literature, Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries 6. Worlds of Fiction: An Introduction to Basque Narrative . 137 MARI JOSE OLAZIREGI 7. Modern Basque Poetry .......................................................... 201 LOURDES OTAEGI 6 Contents 8. Basque Theater from Costumbrismo to Political Symbolism . 245 PATRI URKIZU 9. The Essay in Basque . 267 XABIER ALTZIBAR ARETXABALETA 10. Basque Children’s and Juvenile Literature . 291 XABIER ETXANIZ ERLE 11. Translated Basque Literature.................................................... 311 JOSE MANUEL LÓ P EZ GASENI 12. Other Basque Literatures........................................................ 329 ESTIBALITZ EZKERRA Index ................................................................................... 351 Contributors............................................................................. 365 Preface* MARI JOSE OLAZIREGI The objective of this preface is to explain the aims of this volume, as well as its struc- ture. For this reason we shall focus on the theoretical and methodological reasons that prompted it, more than in proposing an introduction to Basque literature, a task that Professor Jesús María Lasagabaster superbly addresses in his introduction. Let us start by noting that this is a collective rather than a team effort. For this reason, we have chosen to simplify the presentation of its contents: They are organized classically by century up until the twentieth century, and by genre for Basque literature of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We believe that, since this is a plural work, read- ing it will provide the reader with an overview of the evolution of Basque literature, the sociohistorical events that have marked it, and the place it holds within Basque society. Despite the critical pluralism of each of the contributions to this work, the vari- ous chapters agree on the centrality accorded to the critical and contextual analysis of the works. The significance achieved by Basque literature in the twentieth century is undoubtedly meaningful; however, such significance is justified not only by the definite increase in Basque literary production that took place in the past century, but also by the fact that it was then that Basque literature was established as an autonomous activity within Basque society. Since the first book in Euskara was published in 1545—the poem collection Linguæ Vasconum Primitiæ by Bernard Etxepare—only 101 books were published in the 334 intervening years until 1879 and, of those, only 4 can be considered strictly literary. The last decade of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century brought social, political, and cultural changes with them, which were reflected in the emergence of genres such as the novel or the essay. The importance of our literature’s blossoming at the turn of the nineteenth century has already been underlined by literary historians such as Piarres Laffite (1942), Nikolas Ormaetxea “Orixe” (1927), and Koldo * This book has been written as a part of the EHU 10/11 project. 8 Basque Literary History Mitxelena (1958), and a fact consequently reflected in the prominence this period has been given in this volume.1 Thus, as we can see, we speak of a late literature, a literature that has not had too favorable sociohistorical-political conditions for its development and that has been linked, it goes without saying, to the vagaries of the language that sustains it: Euskara, a pre-Indo-European language that is spoken today by about eight hundred thousand euskaldunak or Basque speakers who live mostly on either side of the Pyrenees. The political border dividing the Basque Country or Euskal Herria today marks, in turn, different legal situations. Whereas after the approval of the Spanish Constitution of 1978 Euskara became, together with Castilian, the official language of the two Basque autonomous regions in the Spanish Basque Country (the Basque Autonomous Community and Navarre), this was not the case in the French Basque Country, where Euskara is not an official language. The consequences of this inequality are easy to predict: The introduction of bilingual education models and the availability of grants for publishing in Euskara have meant that today the Basque literary system is much stronger and dynamic in the Southern Basque Country than in the French side. But this was not always so because, as discussed in the chapters on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the first publica- tions in our literary history actually came to light in the French Basque Country, and it was not until well into the eighteenth century that steps were taken for the creation of a Basque literary system in the peninsular Basque Country.2 Although this book tries to respond to a need noted long ago to provide up-to-date volumes on the history of Basque literature published in English, we acknowledge that the title we have chosen, Basque Literary History, needs clarification, since all terms that compose it could be said to be subject to confusion and debate. Using the term history to offer an introduction to Basque literature can undoubtedly be said to be at least questionable, given that the field of literary historiography has 1. “In our case we must place the first obvious manifestations of the existence of a new spirit that would eventually transform the characteristics of literature in manifold ways in the last decade of the past century. And poetry was not the only genre that was expansively developed, the old prominence of works for religious edifica- tion and religious education disappears, although it must be said that the background to everything that is written around that time continues to be undoubtedly Catholic; there is a determined attempt to find different manifestations for the language, to cultivate elements that had not been cultivated before, and consequently the number of translations of secular works considered to be good literary models increases. In contrast with the previous impermeable utilitarianism, this new literature is sometimes too unfocused: it is not very clear, in fact, what sort of audiences some of their productions are supposed to be destined for.” In Koldo Mitxelena, Historia de la Literatura Vasca (Donostia-San Sebastián: Erein, 2011), 135. See also Nikolas Ormaetxea “Orixe,” “Euskal literaturaren atze edo edesti laburra,” Euskal Esnalea 282, no. 1 (1927): 148; Pierre Lafitte, Le basque et la littérature d’expression basque en Labourd, Basse-Navarre et Soule (Baiona: Librairie “Le Livre,” 1942). 2. According to Josu Bijuesca, the factors that encouraged the creation of such a literary system in the French Basque Country in the seventeenth century—the creation of language academies, patronage, the easing of censor- ship—did not take place in the Spanish side of the Basque Country at that time, and it was the endeavor of religious men such as Manuel Larramendi that encouraged the creation of Basque literature in the Spanish side of the Basque Country during the eighteenth century. See “Praktika literarioaren esparru sozialak eta XVIII. Mendeko euskal literatura penintsularra: Naissance de l’écrivain?.” Euskera 55.2 (2010): 877–914. Preface 9 lost the popularity it had in the nineteenth century when most of the national literary histories were developed under the romantic and positivist models. Like history itself, which, following the epistemological debates that have affected it in recent decades, has renounced the idea of

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