“Volent escriure a vostra consolació e plaer”: Metge, Corella and other 14th and 15th century masters of Catalan prose

This article examines literary prose from the leading 14th and 15th century authors who turned care for their style into the centrepiece of their efforts as writers at a time when Catalan scripta had reached maturity, after having become consolidated in the latter part of the 13th century. Bernat Metge and Joan Roís de Corella are the most masterful of these writers, both of them trained in imitating Petrarch, the classics (Ovid, Cicero, Virgil and Seneca) and especially in Boccaccio’s writing in the vernacular. We shall also examine the contributions from Antoni Casals, the anonymous author of Curial e Güelfa, Joanot Martorell, Felip de Malla and Francesc Alegre.