Luys d'Averçó

Luys d'Averçó or Luis de Aversó ("c".1350–1412x15) was a Catalan politician, naval financier, and man of letters. His "magnum opus", the "Torcimany", is one of the most important medieval Catalan-language grammars to modern historians. [Its title means "Interpretor" or "Translator", from the Arabic "turjiman", akin to Spanish "truchimán", see John Forster, trans. (1878), "The Chronicle of James I of Aragon", [http://libro.uca.edu/chronicleofjames/Glossary.htm Glossary] , 709. Its first modern edition was published in 1956 by Josep Maria Casas Homs for the Instituto Miguel de Cervantes.] His name is spelled Lluís d'Averçó or d'Aversó in modern orthography.

Luys was born to a family of naval shipowners in Barcelona in the middle of the fourteenth century. [For a biographical sketch of Luys, see Martí de Riquer i Morera (1964), "Història de la Literatura Catalana", vol. 1 (Barcelona: Edicions Ariel), 560.] He continued in the family business and profited from it financially all his life. He appears to be well-trained in law, for he participated in the municipal government of Barcelona throughout his life, being a councillor ("conseller") in 1395 and again in 1403. During the interregnum of 1410–12 he was charged by the Parliament of Catalonia with arbitrating some disputes amongst the citizens of Lleida. He later represented Barcelona on a diplomatic mission to Majorca. His diverse interests economic, literary, military, and political brought him favour with the monarchs John I ("the Lover of Elegance") and Martin ("the Humane").

No poems by Luys survive, though his reputation in the poetic world of his time is undeniable. [For Luys' poetry, see Riquer, 560.] He and Jaume March II persuaded John I to inaugurate the "jocs florals" at Barcelona and establish a Consistori de la Gaya Sciènça there. On 20 February 1393 John named Jaume and Luys the first judges of the Consistori's contests ("jocs"). On 12 August 1399 their position was reaffirmed by king Martin. Luys' poetic reputation is further established by his "Torcimany", which contain a wealth of information for composing poetry in Catalan.

"Torcimany" survives in a single autograph in the library of the Escorial. [It has been described as "a manual to help Catalan poets fake a better usage of Provençal" by J. M. Sobré (1982), "Ausiàs March, the Myth of Language, and the Troubadour Tradition", "Hispanic Review", 50:3 (Summer), 330. For a fuller treatment of its relationship to the "language of the troubadours", see Mark D. Johnston (1981), "The Translation of the Troubadour Tradition in the "Torcimany" of Lluis d'Averçó", "Philological Quarterly", 60:2 (Spring), pp. 151–167, and José Romeu Figueras (1954), "El cantar paralelístico en Cataluña: sus relaciones con el de Galicia y Portugal y el de Castilla", "Anuario musical", 9, 18–25, 35–36.] Its diffusion was almost null, its influence equally so, and its citation nonexistent. Not even Jaume March's "Libre de concordances", which served the same purpose—a dictionary of rhymes ("diccionari de rimes")—as the appendix of Luys' "Torcimany", shows any evidence of cross-fertilisation or influence. The two poets, who knew each other personally, wrote two similar but independent works. "Torcimany" cannot be confidently dated beyond the final third of the century. It is divided into three sections, the first on the basic concepts of grammar, the second ("del trobar", "on composition") on the genres ("dictats") of poetry, and the third on more difficult aspects of grammar and rhetoric, such as "compàs" (rhythm). [In part one, Luys discusses letters, graphics, diphthongs, syllables, and accents, among other things. He lists eleven main genres in the second: the "vers", "canso", "sirventes", "dansa", "descort", "tenso", "partimen", "pastorela", "retroencha", "planh", and "escondig". He also differentiates the "bordó" (line) from the "cobla" (stanza) and delineates the various vices ("vicis") that poets can commit. In the third part he deals with consonance, rhyme, declension, nouns, tense, genre, and person. The third part itself is divided into sections (Riquer, 561).]

"Torcimany" is not too different from the "Compendi" of Joan de Castellnou or the "Flors del gay saber" of Guilhem Molinier. [According to Robert Archer (1991), "Tradition, Genre, Ethics and Politics in Ausiàs March's "maldit", "Bulletin of Hispanic Studies", 68:3 (July), 376, the "Torcimany" is based on the "Leys d'amors" of the Consistori de Tolosa, of which the "Flors" is one redaction.] The dictionary of rhymes with which it ends, however, is unique to it; and Luys does not appear to have had access to the "Donatz proensals" of Uc Faidit. He appears to have compiled his dictionary from memory and probably for this reason he includes words that would be difficult to employ in the type of verse he seeks to enable. Generally his words have Catalan endings, but a good portion are clearly Occitan, the language of the troubadours. A few on top of that are Castilian or Aragonese, which he clarifies with their Catalan equivalents. These Castilianisms are also unecessary for Catalan poetry, but Luys was fixed upon extending his rhymary. [Riquer, 562, explains the odd choices Luys made for his dictionary. Among the Castilianisms he notes "padre, madre, pulga, risa, esquina, perro, lomo, libra, rota, escutxa, serrà, lutxa", and "etxà". Some of these are given Catalanised spellings (i.e. "ch"→"tx").]

Notes

External links

* [http://www.aulamariustorres.org/materials/biblioteca/visor.php?acronim=tor1&acr_autor=aver&tipus=preceptives "Torcimany", vol. I, 1956] in Biblioteca, Corpus Literari Digital, Aula Màrius Torres.
* [http://www.rialc.unina.it/inc-averco.htm Incipitario di Lluís d'Averçó] , with edited original-language texts of five poetic examples from "Torcimany"