Dolors Monserdà lived paying close attention to her current reality, and got involved in several cultural and social movements. She was a costumbrist writer, as she wrote about local customs and manners; and she adapted her work to social changes as she fixed her gaze in different areas. She is a successor of Josepa Massanés, a Catalan Renaissance writer who she refers to as her teacher. She is considered the first novelist in Catalan, immediate predecessor of Caterina Albert, and also predecessor and geographically linked to other prose writers from Barcelona, such as Mercè Rodoreda, Maria Aurèlia Capmany and Montserrat Roig. However, she also cultivated other genres (poetry, drama, essay, journalism). Her feminist output is also relevant, in spite of her middle-class, conservative point of view which does not question the social order.
Dolors Monserdà i Vidal
(Dolors Monserdà de Macià)
Barcelona 10-07-1845 ‖ Barcelona 31-03-1919
Period of activity: From 1862 until 1930
Geographical classification: Europe > Spain
Socio-cultural movements
Late modern period / Contemporary period > Realism (art and literature) > Costumbrismo
Late modern period / Contemporary period > Feminism
Late modern period / Contemporary period > Cultural revivals and movements of the end of the 19th century > Catalan noucentisme
Late modern period / Contemporary period > Literary and cultural movements since the end of the 19th century > Literature from the first third of the 20th century
* Multi-secular movements > Antislavery
Groups by dedication
Activists > Feminists (activists)
Activists > Abolitionists
Writers > Poets
Writers > Dramatists / Playwrights
Writers > Essayists
Writers > Orators
Writers > Biographers
Writers > Journalists / Chroniclers > Literary, music, etc. critics
Context of feminine creation
Review
When she was fourteen, Dolors Monserdà attended the revival of the Floral Games in Barcelona. She was in the audience when a bomb went off at the Liceu theatre in 1893; that same year, she published her first novel, La Montserrat. Her third novel, La fabricanta (The female manufacturer) (1904) is a realist novel, with female main characters and which clearly tries to vindicate women's work in the textile industry. It was published around the same time as Solitud (Solitude), by Caterina Albert, who describes her as "truly avant-garde". During the 1880s, she published her stage play Teresa o un jorn de prova (Teresa, or a day's trial) by chapters in Lo Gay Saber. Besides, she was director of Modas y Labores (Fashion and sewing), a supplement of the newspaper Diari Català, and she created the Sewing Workers' Association. Her essay output focused on Catholic feminism, based on intellectual equality, but that did not intend to defy the social order.
Justifications
Biography
Dolors Monserdà i Vidal (Barcelona 1845-1919) was born in the bosom of a petty-bourgeois family. She witnessed the changes experimented by Catalan society in the 19th and early 20th century. As an author ‒she signed most of her work as Dolors Monserdà i Macià‒ she focused on narrating social problems contemporary to her, always from a conservative and religious point of view, with special attention to women's issues.
Monserdà published her fist poem, dedicated to Josep Anselm Clavé, in 1862 and she is also attributed some literary and journalistic works, including short stories and some stage plays. From 1870 on, she wrote mostly in Catalan and published some poetry with Floral Games undertones. Regarding her so-called feminist output, she published articles in the magazines "Modas y Labores", "La mujer que vive de su trabajo" and "Feminal", as well as some collections.
As for poetry, she received several awards after publishing two collections of poems in 1888 and 1911, respectively. In 1909, she was the first woman to preside Barcelona's Floral Games. However, her most typical genre is the novel. Her works reveal the intention of showing a side of Catalan society in order to spread the same values that she captured in her articles. Her writings include a mixture of costumbrism, realism and romanticism, three aesthetic movements at the time.
Besides her literature, which was prolific and tackled different genres, Dolors Monserdà was one of the first women journalists in Catalan.
Works
NARRATIVE:
(1908). Del món.
NOVELS:
(1893). La Montserrat.
(1900). La família Asparó.
(1904). La Fabricanta.
(1930). La Quitèria.
(1917). Maria-Glòria.
(1917). No sempre la culpa és d’ella.
(1918). Els rellogats; Els captaires; Els vells.
(1920). Buscant una ànima.
POETRY:
(1862). "Poema dedicat al mestre Clavé", Eco de Euterpe.
(1888). Poesies catalanes.
(1911). Poesies.
DRAMA:
(1874). Sembrad y cogeréis.
(1876). Teresa o un jorn de prova.
(1913). Amor mana.
CRITIC LITERATURE AND ESSAY
(1907). El feminisme a Catalunya.
(1909). Estudi feminista. Orientacions per a la dona catalana.
(1915). Biografia de Na Josepa Massanés i Dalmau.
(1916). Tasques socials. Recull d’articles, notes rurals i conferències.
Bibliography
Online publications (in catalan):
PEN Català, https://www.pencatala.cat/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/A%CC%80LBUM-MONSERDA%CC%80-DEFINITIU.pdf, (retrieved on 18-03-2022)
Projecte Traces, https://projectetraces.uab.cat/project/dolors-monserda/#, (retrieved on 18-03-2022)
XTEC, http://xtec.gencat.cat/ca/centres/celebracions/2019/any-dolors-monserda/ (with teaching materials) (retrieved on 18-03-2022)
Institut Català de les Dones, http://xtec.gencat.cat/web/.content/centres/celebracions/2019/any-dolors-monserda/recursos-didactics/documents/BibliografiaDolorsMonserda.pdf, (retrieved on 18-03-2022)
Didactic approach
Dolors Monserdà's work presents a side of bourgeois society linked to the emerging industrial revolution which shaped the urban outlook of late 19th century and early 20th century in Catalonia. She is, therefore, quite suitable for students to learn the characteristics of the context that gave rise to Catalan noucentisme and costumbrist realism. On the other hand, reading feminist texts based on classism and religion gives the possibility of comparing the evolution of the movement and the situation of women then and now.
She could be studied in Valencian language and literature in 4th of ESO.