“I AIXÍ, VIVINT EN TA IDEA”: LA POESIA A GILETA DE FRANCESC FONTANELLA A LA LLUM DEL NEOPLATONISME

Abstract

The influence of Neo-Platonism in Catalan literature is still a field to be studied. This article focuses on how this philosophy affects Francesc Fontanella’s poems to Gileta. The link between the giletes and Neo-Platonism is not a trivial connection because it affects the whole poem, how the relationship is described and the structure of the narrative, including the language and images chosen. In some poems, Francesc Fontanella reproduces the unaltered philosophical theory, but sometimes he forces the sense of the Neoplatonic theory into the verses in order to favour the poetic game. In conclusion, Fontanella proves to be a writer who knows the philosophical currents in vogue at that time and, moreover, he is able to apply them in a very particular way to his poetry, giving it a high level of conceptualism and complexity, just the opposite of the labels of ingenuity and simplicity that have accompanied the giletes throughout the twentieth century.