Latin and political identity in eighteenth-century Catalonia

Abstract

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to show how, in eighteenth-century Catalonia, the use of the Latin language is not restricted to school books, legal documents or devotional and religious writings. As with other European territories, Latin played an important role as the language of political discourse and propaganda in the Catalan-speaking lands at the time, above all during the War of Spanish Succession at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In what follows we will focus on a series of texts, which, for linguistic and literary reasons, have gone unnoticed by historians and philologists. These include documents describing the two sieges of Barcelona in the Autumn of 1705 and in the Spring of the following year. Particular attention will be given to the anonymous Barcino a Carolo propugnata, a poem published in Barcelona after 1708.

Key words: War of Spanish Succession, political propaganda, classical tradition, epic latin poetry.