Character
Nacisa

Narcisa Torres

(Rosa Trincares)

Unknown 18th century ‖ Unknown 18th century

Period of activity: From 1732 until 1734

Geographical classification: Europe > Spain

Socio-cultural movements

Early modern period > Baroque

Early modern period > Enlightenment

Groups by dedication

Activists > Feminists (activists)

Writers > Poets

Context of feminine creation

It is necessary to situate Narcisa Torres' work at the tradition of the laudatory poetry, circumstantial poetry published among the preliminaries of ancient forms of the 16th-18th centuries that permitted the emergence of the first witnesses of printed poetry of feminine authorship at the Catalan linguistic field. Among the more ancient feminine verses in our sphere, we can find a sonnet of Jerònima Galés, published in 1562, in Spanish, at one of the volumes that she printed while she directed the print shop of the Mey and that can be consulted here:

https://bivaldi.gva.//*cms/fichero.cmd?*id=*estaticos/*ficheros/bio-jeronimagales-soneto-rafael.pdf , (retrieved on 20-03-2022).

It consists of a brief composition, vindictive in tone, in which Galés defends her value as a printer. The author alludes, in her lines, at the misogynistic “languages” that critique women who exert in spheres that are not socially considered as open for women.

In the Catalan linguistic sphere, numerous laudatory poetic compositions signed by a female author until the 18th century are conserved. When this style which included preliminary poems declived, most of the texts were written in Spanish, except for Rosa Trincares' (Narcisa Torres) texts, and those of other authors like Sister Jerònima Bosch, Sister Maria Tomasa Collarés Fabra, Sister Caterina Gubert i d'Aguilar or Sister Isabel Vigurós i Bosch, who wrote laudatory poetry in Catalan in the 17th century. Regarding the 18th century, only four pieces signed with a female name can be found: three of Rosa Trincares, acclaimed to laud the forms of the notary and lexicographer Carles Ros. 

Review

The work, in Catalan, of this poetess that lived in the 18th century integrates into the so-called laudatory poetry of preliminaries, where a remarkable number of women at the Iberian peninsula contributed among the 16th and 18th centuries. The laudatory poetry is published in the preliminaries of the old printings, next to approvals, ecclesiastical licenses, dedications or author prologues, and they used to be texts that the authors collected as a type of praise. Rosa Trincares took advantage of the space awarded by Carles Ros, who the compositions were dedicated to, to claim the literary value of the poetesses in one of them. 

Justifications

  • Baroque poetry in Catalan, author of two sonnets and of a heroic romance.
  • Laudatory poetry, a kind of praise to Carles Ros.
  • Claim of the feminine authorship against the evil tongues.
  • Claim of the literary value of the poetesses.
  • Use of the anagram Rosa Trincares (Narcisa Torres) to sign the work.

Biography

Very little personal data of the poetess, who signed with the anagram Rosa Trincares, is conserved. Since the researcher Faustino Barberá (1905) deciphered the mystery about the identity of this author, she has been related to Narcisa Torres, a relative of the notary and poet Marià Torres, who came from Ros' circle of friends. She was author of two sonnets and of a heroic romance in Catalan, works that appeared published among the years 1732-1734 in three volumes of the notary and lexicographer Carles Ros, with the intent to laud the author or the books: Práctica de ortografía (1732), Tractat d’adages (1733; reed. 1736 i 1788) and Epítome del origen (1734). The poetess took advantage of the opportunity that the Valencian notary offered to her, claiming by means of these verses of circumstances her «holy numen» (divine gift) against the bad consideration that poetic scripture by women had. 

Works

1) Sonnet «Cuiden els Metjes de curar dolènts...», in Pràctica de ortographia para dos idiomas, castellano y valenciano..., (1732) València: Hereu de Vicent Cabrera, f. 8, https://books.google.es/books?id=SliuNNdhpjEC&printsec=frontcover&hl=ca&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false, (Retrieved 20-03-2022).

 

2) Sonnet «Tan gustosa quedì, y tan agradada...», in Tratat de adages y refranys valencians, y pràctica pera escriure ab perfecció la lengua valenciana..., (1733) València, Hereu de Vicent Cabrera, p. 14-15 [2a reimpr. 1736, p. 15],  https://bivaldi.gva.es/es/consulta/registro.do?id=1745, (Retrieved on 20-03-2022).

 

3) Romance «Ser lloats, y aplaudits mereixen Carlos...», dins Epítome del origen y grandezas del idioma valenciano..., (1734) València, Cosme Granja, f. 37-42, https://bivaldi.gva.es/es/consulta/registro.do?id=1587 , (Retrieved on 20-03-2022).

Bibliography

NISE, Literatura catalana de l’edat moderna. Digital edition of the poem, 26-03-2022 https://www.nise.cat/ca-es/Biblioteca-Digital/Autors/Autor/Poema/pid/143/Ser_lloats_i_aplaudits_mereixen_Carlos.

Barberá, Faustino (1905). Conferencias sobre bio-bibliografía de Carles Ros València, Impr. by Francisco Vives Mora.

Herrero Herrero, María Ángeles (dir.) (2021)  Escriptores valencianes de l’Edat Moderna. Portal temàtic de la Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 20-03-2022 https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/portales/escriptores_valencianes_edat_moderna/rosa_trincares/ 

Rubio, Antoni. «Rosa Trincares o ‘sr. Ros, cantaire’», El Mundo. Comunidad Valenciana, (17-12-2017), 26-03-2022 https://www.elmundo.es/comunidad-valenciana/2017/12/17/5a326b5822601d4a468b45c9.html

Miralles, Eulàlia & Zaragoza, Verònica (2019). «Les poetes de Carles Ros. (Amb unes notes sobre l’ús del sonet a la València del primer Setcents)», in  V. Escartí (ed.), Nunc dimittis. Estudis dedicats al professor Antoni Ferrando. Valencia: Universitat de València, pp. 333-364.

Peris, Laura (2020). “Narcisa Torres” in Antoni Furió (ed.), Quinze dones valencianes. Catarroja: Afers, 2020, pp. 197-221.

Zaragoza, Verònica (2013-2014). “‘Sapientia absconsa et thesaurus invisus’. Notes sobre la presència femenina en les premses rosselloneses (segles XVI-XVIII)”, in  Verònica Zaragoza and Marc Sogues (coord.), Butlletí de la Reial Acadèmica de Bones Lletres de Barcelona, LIV, pp. 262-297. 

Didactic approach

The author’s work can be studied in 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th of ESO, in the blocks of literary education in the subject of Valencian language and literature. She is also suitable for the block of reading and writing and the block of knowledge of the language (work on the evolution of language and spelling, lexicographical, sociolinguistic and phonetic aspects, etc.).
 
She can also be studied regarding authorship in works of female production: the use of pseudonyms (Víctor Català, pseudonym of Caterina Albert; Maria de Bell-lloc, pseudonym of Pilar Maspons, etc.), anonymity in popular poetry or name games (Poetry by Clementina Arderiu “Clementina em dic”).
 
Related to the topic of vindicating the value of women with the poem by the Valencian printer Jerónima Galés, written in Spanish.

Documents