In many ways, the title of this presentation may initially surprise and I should like to clarify the issue for some who may have misunderstood the statement that Foix was not political. The reference itself derives from an interview I had with him in 1974 when he said to me:"I am not political. Politics doesn't interest me. It never has." Surprising as it may seem, regardless of any data which have turned up subsequently, Foix, at age 81, did indeed make that statement. Hence the title of this paper: "A language BEYOND politics" as well as "A LANGUAGE beyond politics." I believe that Foix intended to go beyond politics in the interest of the Catalan language and its culture. His loyalty was centered on his culture and its language.

      In order to consider the environmental implications of literary production in the Catalonia of this century, a summary of the poet’s literary career may prove helpful to the non-native reader. Josep Vicenç Foix, J.V. Foix as he preferred to be known, was born at the end of the 19th century in a suburb of Barcelona, Sarrià, and as a youth witnessed and took part in the flourishing of Catalan culture, language and arts. This had not occurred since the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. In many way, Foix was ever prone to the exercise of journalism, beginning with his hand-written Lo català from the age of 8. As a young man he wrote and participated in publishing numerous periodicals, newspapers and literary magazines. Indeed, his own poems began to appear in print from a very early age. During 1931-36 he was director, critic and principal writer for the literary and art pages of La Publicitat, a leading bi-weekly newspaper. This last period prior to the Civil War was a time of literary and journalistic freedom, enthusiastically embraced by Catalan writers and their readers.

      With the approaching Civil War, hostilities and the long dictatorship which followed until 1975 Catalan writers died, disappeared or fell silent. The arts were practised as apolitically as seemed prudent until the late 60s and finally up until the death of Franco. A handful of poets, particularly Foix, who had become well-known through his cultural newspaper writings, art and literary criticism, continued to be active and even published inconspicuously during the years of the Franco dictatorship.

      Some years after the Civil and World War, when his family business was stable and prospering, Foix began to publish in earnest, beginning in 1947. Though his first poetical essays in prose, Gertrudis and KRTU, had been published in 1927 and 1932 respectively, it was in 1947, during the early years of the dictatorship, when the masterful collection of sonnets Sol, i de dol/Alone and in Mourning, ready for publication by 1936, first appeared. This was followed by more poetry in 1949, 1951, 1953, 1956, 1957, 1960, 1963, 1964 and 1965. An anthology of verse and prose selected by the poet appeared in 1964. Within it was L'estrella d'En Perris/ The Star of Mr Perris, (1) which had come out the year before in limited quantity. Not unlike many of his contemporaries, Foix often paid to have his work published initially, in limited editions restricted to extremely small print runs.

      Though he was to publish in prose again, this did not occur till some 20 years later: in 1969 Els lloms transparents/ Transparent Loins, Darrer comunicat/ Final Communiqué, new prose which Foix thought would be his final work; in 1970 Allò que no diu la Vanguardia/ What "La Vanguardia" doesn’t say, Tocant a mà/ At hand in 1972. His prose writings were to be collected in volume three of the Obres completes in 1979. (2)

      La Publicitat, which arguably constitutes Foix’s most incisive contribution in the field of journalism, was the creation of Acció Catalana which in due course became Acció Catalana Republicana. Foix had been an adherent of this movement from at least 1922 until 1936, by which time it had, in the eyes of many, come to abandon its original goals. For him it was not a party in the familiar, everyday sense, but a broad cultural movement, a state of the spirit": (3)

      Foix supported the ideals of the original Acció Catalana. In front-page editorials he urged a personal effort for each individual to be an ideal citizen of a democracy which bears the name Catalonia. This concept and others surrounding it are discussed by Foix in his articles for this journal, published as Els Lloms transparents/ Transparent Loins, in 1969 with a prologue by his friend and fellow poet, Gabriel Ferrater. (5) As he was accustomed to say, Foix was not interested in politics per se; he was only interested in encouraging Catalan language and culture in whatever reality it might encounter. Certainly he deplored the tragic events of the years 1936-75 but he had a task; and he explained his concept of loyalty to the Catalan Ideal in one of his newspaper editorials, "Ésser Lleals" (note the plural, for all Catalans) "On Loyalty," on 7 July, 1935, by which time, in the eyes of many, it had already been abandoned:

      Volume three of Foix's Obres completes is devoted to his "political writings." Manuel Carbonell, editor of this volume, has used Foix's terms as title for each section: "La ciutat de l'esperit,"(City of the Spirit), "Ética i Política," (Ethics and Politics),"Ésser Leals,"(Being Loyal),"La causa de la llengua," (For the Language),"La causa de la llibertat," (For Liberty),"La causa de la llatinitat," (For Latins). (7) I would submit that Foix wrote all his life, prose and poetry, with one ideal in mind: the ideal of furthering the Catalan language and its culture. While doing so, by extension, he wrote for freedoms of speech, language and culture in all places where fascism or and dictatorships oppressed these basic human liberties.

      During the dictatorship he had been able to continue publishing quietly and in small quantities. Sol, i de dol, ready for publication years earlier, was published in 1947. In retrospect, this volume of sonnets echoing the greatest Catalan poets of all the ages, yet in modern, uncorrupted Catalan, is a true benchmark for the history of Catalan literature. It announced to the world that the language was alive. It proclaimed that modern Catalan poetics, steeped in Llull and March, were a viable medium for 20th century emotions and aesthetics. In 1949 Les Irreals Omegues/ The Unreal Omegas appeared; On he deixat les claus.../ Where have I left the Keys... in 1953; Diari 1918/ Diary of 1918 in 1956, Onze Nadals un cap d'any/ Eleven Christmases and One Year’s End in 1960; and Desa aquests llibres al calaix de baix/ Store Those Books in the Bottom Drawer, in 1963 as well as some minor pieces.

      By 1963 when L'estrella d'En Perris/ The Star of Mr. Perris, in prose poetry, was published, Foix was able to express his continuing loyalty in rather thinly-veiled poetic prose. It was still a difficult time. To write Catalan in newspapers was still impossible. The Spain of 1964, the year after a small edition of this collection was published, was the 25th year since the end of the Civil War. Rather than constituting an era of peace and reconciliation, however, the quarter of a century which had passed since the end of hostilities had rather emphasised the divisions between conquerors and the defeated; an oppression made ominously present by the seeming ubiquity of the name of Franco stamped in red in triplicate on houses and buildings all over Spain. With the Caudillo's name threateningly emblazoned above town clocks it was evidently not an easy or open time for other languages or cultures of Spain. Caution was still in order and, to all extents and purposes, the only real attitude to be recommended.

      L'estrella d'En Perris is the Costa Brava fishermen's name for Venus, the bright morning and evening guiding star. Foix often sailed with the fishermen and took note of their speech, purer and less corrupted Catalan than that of citydwellers. I believe that the title carries a subtle message as well; that of guide to home and hearth for Catalan language and culture. The first selection opens as though the poet were relating a dream: (8)

      In "Era jo sol...", the poet finds himself alone, on a train, surrounded by books, which he throws out the window to peasants, drivers and passers-by. It is a frustrated, irritated Foix, speaking to other writers and poets, calling them myopic and inviting them to join him in first throwing books and then experiencing Catalan nature along his beloved Costa Brava near el Port de la Selva for inspiration. On their way they will be asked for their safe-conduct pass by the "Ogre" before they can climb the peak where the 10th century monastery still stands. It is a national symbol for Foix.

      Upon the mountain top they will pray for courage and fortitude, where they will read what is written there before burning their autographs. "Autògrafs" could mean what they had written themselves or their signatures - on a manifesto, perhaps? It seems clear, read in the present, that Foix is urging Catalan writing, Catalan inspiration for Catalan writers, dissemination of Catalan writing to all; and yet still he is still careful about openly revealing the Catalan language, the Catalan identity and Ideal. There are caveats, obliquely phrased but clear to those who understand Foix's style.

      This opening prose poem, to the eye of a censor, would not make much sense. He might quickly leaf through the slender volume of this "difficult, surrealist poet who was now trying to write prose." The censor might have missed the point of the stacks of volumes our poet was feverishly tossing out to Catalans along the roads. This first selection is all about writing and language. It is the second prose poem, wisely not placed at the head of the volume, which boldly shouts its clarion call to Catalan writers and intellectuals in language only they can understand: "La Cendra és calenta...",

      L’estrella d’En Perris,1963, is more veiled than, Darrer comunicat, 1970. (10) Foix explained to me that he meant the title as a military term, to describe the struggle he had been engaged in all his life, that of freedom for words. By 1970 he was bold enough to open the volume with a slashing attack on tyranny and its concomitant abuse and distortion of words as metaphor for writers. As the poet strolls along the old Roses road near the Cap de Creus, someone hands him this page which says:

This is Foix's strongest, most biting attack on censorship in all times and places. "Someone" handed it to him, he has told us and the censor. He has printed "their" words.

      The Civil War and its politics ended Foix's public prose career for many years, although he never stopped writing. We can be grateful that he channeled his creativity into poetry and prose poems, which he had always written. In an outburst of journalistic mimicry, surrealist, humorous and ironic, Foix published Allò que no diu La Vanguardia, in 1970. La Vanguardia was and is a leading newspaper published in Castilian in Barcelona. Since Catalan newspapers had not yet appeared, Foix's book, with its well-chosen title, makes a series of statements about what was not available to read, raising consciousness about the lack of Catalan press and reading materials, and further implying the lack of veracity in La Vanguardia, just as in the USSR people had learned to say,"Pravda, ne pravda," "Pravda isn't truthful." Yet, what was a censor to say upon examining this dizzyingly surrealistic "newspaper," in which appeared such startling, apparently impenetrable statements as, "Augmenta de tres centímetres el preu del pa" (The price of bread has risen three centimeters);(11) "A graceful flock of delicate electronic computers descends, at setting sun..."; (12) or, "At Sallent d'Organyà, three natty and voracious automobiles are grazing on hay,"(13) and so forth. Sections of the book are "Noves de Darrera Hora" (Up-To-The-Minute News), "Telegrames" (Telegrams) and "Fets Diversos" (Various Happenings). There are headlines and brief articles. "Telegrames" and "Fets Diversos"had actually appeared in La Publicitat in the 1930s, the latter with the title "Desviacions" (Detours)" (14)

      The language of poetry can convey its message clandestinely, through transparent surrealistic imagery, through samizdat which the authorities do not recognize because they are encoded allegories and themes recognizable only to fellow Catalans. The very act of writing is a defiance of political realities. Foix courageously exemplifies the heroic response to the threats against his language and culture. Volume after volume continued to appear, nurturing post-Civil War generations, inspiring younger poets of today with living, breathing language. Across cultures, what matters to the poet or writer who is also a patriot is to keep the language alive, in print, read and recited. Who could object to a Christmas carol? A Nadal? Who could object if it were sung on the radio or in cathedrals at Christmas time? Just as Foix put a picture of the Holy Family in his shop window instead of the commanded portrait of Franco when the troops entered Barcelona, so he proceeded in new ways to promulgate his language. It is modern, authentic Catalan .Foix's knowledge of Catalan vocabulary and syntax had been honed from his youth. As a University student he had hand-copied poetry of Llull and March, unavailable in bookstores, to share with his friends. Years later, he was recognized as an expert in Catalan linguistics and appointed as a head of the philology section of the Insitut d'Estudis Catalans.

      In a minority culture political necessity can lead to absorption, to cultural and linguistic genocide, as was/is the case in Catalunya, a culture which has a thousand-year literary history worthy of any European country. Foix lifted his language as the banner above and beyond politics.