Review

Clementina Arderiu is one of the many female voices that appear in Catalan literature during the first half of the 20th century. She was related to Maria Antonia Salvano, a writer with whom she wrote, and Rosa Leveroni, a younger poet with whom she had a personal and literary relationship. Influenced by popular poetry and noucentisme, she wrote some very musical verses and goigs, a poetic sung composition. Her poetry is often based on everyday elements and deals with faith, love, female condition, motherhood and death. Her life was cut short by the civil war and she lived in exile in France for four years, but she continued to write and publish poetry in Catalan during  Franco regime.

Justifications

• Her poetry presents symbolist traits and, in its beginnings, is situated in the noucentisme.
• Her very musical work is influenced by popular poetry.
• On the basis of issues of her everyday life, she addresses such far-reaching issues as love, faith, female status, motherhood and death. It also deals with the experience of exile and the defense of the Catalan language.
• Refugee in France (1939–1943), returning to Barcelona forms part of the underground cultural resistance under Francoism.
• Some of her poems have been set to music by her grandson, Pau Riba, Guillermina Motta or Abelard Alba and Ivan Brull.

Biography

Clementina Arderiu was born in Barcelona in 1889. She came from a family of silversmiths by father and of rural origin by mother. She received a solid education: she studied languages, music and piano, which gave her great knowledge of rhythm and melody, and was a great reader. She published her first poem in 1911 and in 1912 obtained the natural flower in the floral games of the Agrupació Excursionista Déu i Pàtria, on which occasion she met Carles Riba, who  at the time was 19 years old and had already achieved some prestige. They married in 1916 and had a daughter and three sons (the youngest died when he was only six). During the 1920s, the couple travelled in Italy, Germany, France and Greece.

Clementina Arderiu was a convinced but atypical housewife: she was versed in the classics, played the piano, attended lectures by intellectuals, traveled in Europe and wrote poetry. Her work reflects precisely the awareness of this singularity. 

Her first book, Cançons i elegies was published in 1916. Four years later, in 1920, L'alta llibertat appeared and, in 1936, Poemes collected it. In 1939, just before Barcelona was occupied by the Francoist side, and fearing reprisals, the family fled to France where it remained for four years, during which time it suffered from hunger and fear.

Relocated in Barcelona, she published in 1946 Sempre i ara, a collection that had won the Joaquim Folguera prize in 1938, illustrated with lithographs by Arderiu's avant-garde painter and friend, Olga Sacharof. És a dir  appeared in 1959 and obtained the  premi Ossa Menor and the Lletra d'Or, i L'esperança encara, published in 1969, was worthy of the  premi Crítica Serra d'Or de poesia.

Francoism was a grey and difficult period, as her husband's fulminant career was cut short and they had to live modestly. However, they continued to cultivate their cultural life. Among other activities, the Riba-Arderiu couple called clandestine encounters of intellectuals in their home. 

The contempt for the Catalan language was painful and Clementina Arderiu wrote some verses in defense of the language. She also dedicated some of them to the experience of exile. Many of her poems deal with subjects of her everyday life through which she addresses transcendental issues such as love, death or female condition. Her work is original, mature and rigorous and has several layers of meaning.

Her works have been translated into Spanish and English (Lyrikline, 06/06/2023, https://www.lyrikline.org/en/authors/clementina-arderiu) and have been included on Lletra, 06/06/2023, https://lletra.uoc.edu/ca/autora/clementina-arderiu  i l’AELC, 06/06/2023, https://www.escriptors.cat/autors/arderiuc/biografia-clementina-arderiu websites.

Works

Bibliography

Abrams, Sam (2012). “Bandera d’estiu” dins Clementina Arderiu. Jo era en el cant (ed. Sam Abrams), Barcelona: Edicions 62, pp. 25-42.

Abrams, Sam (2012). “Bandera d’estiu”, dins Sam Abrams (ed.). Clementina Arderiu. Jo era en el cant, Barcelona: Edicions 62, pp. 25-42.

Marçal, Maria-Mercè (1985). “Introducció” a Clementina Arderiu. Contraclaror. Antologia poètica (ed. Maria-Mercè Marçal). Bracelona: LaSal, pp. 9-60.

Riba, Cèlia (2012). “Uns records de Clementina Arderiu” dins Clementina Arderiu. Jo era en el cant (ed. Sam Abrams), Barcelona: Edicions 62, pp. 9-23.

Riba, Caterina (2009). “Les poetes de Cadaqués” Tres poetes de Cadaqués (ed. De Rosa Ardid i Caterina Riba). Girona: Els llibres del segle.

WEBS

Living poetry, didactic proposals, 07-05-2023, http://www.viulapoesia.com/pagina_6.php?tipus=1&subtipus=2&itinerari=11&idpoema=259

Didactic approach

The author can be dealt with in Catalan and Universal Literature, both in ESO and high school courses.

She has also poems about the experience of exile and can be used to explain Spanish History. 

 Her poems on the female condition, motherhood, the death of her young son with Down syndrome, to whom she dedicated the poem Presence of Death to his death when he was seven years old, could be used in Ethics.

Documents