CASTELLDEFELS, FROM 'KASTRUM FELIX' TO AN ASTEROID

Castelldefels then and now

Today, The Grandma wants to talk about Castelldefels. Recently, she has had a great experience in this amazing city between the Mediterranean Sea and the Garraf range.

She has known wonderful women who are working very hard preparing their present to improve their future.This is a special post dedicated to all of them -Andrea, Carmen, Cristina, Eva, Gisela, Giselle, Jenifer, Marimí, Montse, Pilar, Roxana, Teresa and Yessenia- to thank them their dedication and trust in this project that they started together with The Grandma and they are going to continue without her. Our best wishes of success in your closer future.

Before remembering her last experience in Castelldefels, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Elementary Language Practice manual (Vocabulary 12).

More information: Vocabulary 12-The Body

Castelldefels is a municipality in El Baix Llobregat county, in the province of Barcelona, Catalonia and part of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona.

It is located about 20 km southwest of Barcelona, just to the north of the Garraf range and is the last town on the coast before the comarca of Garraf. The town is famous for its long beach. Nearby towns include Gavà, Viladecans, Sant Boi de Llobregat, Sitges and el Prat de Llobregat. Castelldefels borders the coast of the Mediterranean Sea between Sitges and Gavà.

The Olympic canal, called Canal Olímpic de Catalunya, built for the 1992 Summer Olympic Games of Barcelona is in the town.

The main-belt asteroid 72037 Castelldefels, discovered in 2000, is named after the town.

Old memories of Castelldefels

The most popular building in Castelldefels is its castle.  

Castelldefels Castle is a frontier fortress in the town of Castelldefels that was built to defend the frontier of the Carolingian Empire against neighbouring Muslim territories, particularly the Caliphate of Cordoba. The fortress was first recorded in the 10th century, as was the former parish church of St. Mary, contained within its outer wall.

The castle occupies a hilltop to the northeast of the modern town centre and the castle complex includes the castle keep, a church, associated outbuildings, and a cemetery, all contained within a curtain wall. The hill was first occupied in ancient times and archaeologists have excavated remains of a Laietani settlement dating from the 3rd to the 1st century BC, and a Roman villa dating from the 1st to the 6th century AD.

The castle was first recorded in AD 967, and by the 14th century a fortified house existed with a strong curtain wall. The church was also fortified in the 14th century. The castle as it stands today was largely built in the 16th century as a response to the expansion of the Ottoman Empire.

More information: Castelldefels

The castle had largely fallen into ruin by the second half of the 19th century, although the church continued in use as the local parish church. In 1893 a notorious murder took place in the rectory when a young baker broke in and murdered the parish priest and his niece. The murderer was soon caught, and was executed outside the castle walls in 1895. Soon afterwards the castle was purchased by a wealthy Barcelonan banker, who refurbished it and added decorative crenellations throughout. In the early 20th century the parish church was moved to its current location and the castle church was refurbished as a family chapel.

The castle stands upon a 59-metre high hill to the northeast of the town centre, occupying a prominent position overlooking the coast. The hill has a number of artificial terraces on its eastern and southern sides, and its summit is covered with vegetation.

Old memories of Masia Ca n'Armand, Castelldefels

The castle consists of a fortress dominated by a high, circular tower. It possesses a number of smaller towers of a variety of types, and the complex includes a church, and residential buildings on the western side.

The southern portion of the castle bailey is occupied by the partially fortified church and its associated outbuildings, including the rectory and vestry, and a cemetery. The castle keep, actually consisting of two main buildings, is on the west side. The eastern portion of the keep is built from red sandstone, quarried in Begues. The western portion is bulkier and has plaster-coated masonry, giving it a beige colour.

The entire complex of buildings, incorporating both the keep and the church and their associated outbuildings, is contained within a fortified enclosure, the wall of which has been modified throughout the castle's history. The outer gate of the castle is at the northern extreme of the bailey; it is decorative in nature and was built in 1897.

More information: Consorci de Turisme-El Baix Llobregat

Archaeological reconnaissance of the hillside below the castle revealed abundant ancient remains, leading to the conclusion that the hill supported an ancient Iberian settlement and a later Roman villa.

The Iberian settlement, inhabited by the Laietani, has been dated from the middle of the 3rd century BC to the end of the 1st century BC. The town of the Laietani covered the hilltop and the adjoining southern and eastern flanks. An Iberian water cistern was found carved from the bedrock under the castle's subsoil. A number of Iberian house remains were excavated under the church, although none have been found under the main area of the castle due to later modifications to the land surface, in order to level the courtyard in the middle of the 16th century.

The Grandma visits the war bunker, Castelldefels

The Roman villa has been dated from the 1st century BC to the 6th century AD. The discovery of a 2nd-century funerary monument dedicated to Caius Trocina Synecdemus has led the excavator to attribute the ownership of the villa to him.

The villa probably fell within the ager of Barcino, and was at the edge of a small port; it was probably used by Trocina Synecdemus to fund his public office of sevir augustalis, priest of the Imperial cult, in Barcino.

The church of St. Mary was built on the hill in the 10th century by the monastery of Sant Cugat, which had been given instruction to develop the Castelldefels region by Sunyer, Count of Barcelona. The new church was first mentioned in a document dating to AD 967.

The first mention of a castle on the hill is an indirect reference to the church of St. Mary of Castrum Felix, Fortunate Castle in Latin. Archaeologists have not identified any remains of this early castle, suggesting that it may have been just a tower or perishable fortification, or that it stood on the highest part of the hill, located within the present-day castle courtyard, the bedrock of which was levelled during the 16th century.

More information: Diputació de Barcelona

The church structure visible today is Romanesque in style and dates from the 11th century. The Romanesque church was probably consecrated in 1106. It has a single nave with three apses, a transept, and supports a small belltower.

By the 14th-15th centuries, regional instability led to the increased need for defences, and the church was fortified. Records from the period indicate that the hilltop had been occupied by a fortified house with a strong curtain wall. The earliest known remains of the castle date to the 14th century; a truncated circular tower to the south of the church is of this date. Also in the 14th century, the church was partially fortified, particularly the southern apse, and battlements were added.

The Grandma contemplates a defense tower

By the middle of the 16th century the Ottoman Empire was increasingly powerful and controlled much of the Mediterranean Sea; their alliance with Barbary pirates presented increased danger to the coastal population of Catalonia. In response, King Philip II of Spain ordered the construction of an extensive series of fortifications along the Mediterranean coast. At this time, the existing fortified house was demolished and the first phase of the castle was constructed from red sandstone. At this time the castle's basal platform and retaining walls were built. The great southwest tower was erected in 1590.

By the second half of the 19th century, the castle had fallen into ruin and, at the end of the century, its ownership passed into the hands of Manuel Girona, a powerful Barcelonan banker and politician. He contracted Catalan architect Enric Sagnier to restore the castle walls and towers, and add Gothic-style windows and doors. Decorative crenellations were added to the great southwest tower, and to most of the castle walls. The work was completed in 1897.

More information: Barcelona Home

Girona died in 1903, and his son, Manuel Girona Vidal, restored the church for use as a family chapel. He also built the current parish church in Castelldefels, and the image of St. Mary was moved there from the castle in 1911.

In 1988, ownership of the castle passed to Castelldefels municipal council. In 1989, the council launched a project to restore the church and its associated buildings, including the sacristy and rectory. At the same time an investigation of the castle complex was also undertaken.

During the 1989 restoration project, workers uncovered a Latin inscription upon a limestone block embedded in the rectory wall. The block measured 93 by 60 by 52 centimetres, with the area of the inscription measuring 78 by 48.5 centimetres. The block possibly served as the base of a statue, and was inscribed with: C. TROCINAE C. LIB. SYNECDEMO IIIIII VIR. AUG. VALERIA. HALINE MARITO. OPTIMO.

This was interpreted as To Caius Trocina Synecdemus, freedman of Caius, sevir augustalis. The monument has been dated to the 2nd century AD. The inscription identified the block as one that had been examined and recorded in the same rectory by an 18th-century antiquarian. The excavator believes that the memorial stone was found very close to its original location, and that the Roman villa belonged to Trocina Synecdemus.

More information: Castelldefels Turismo

Yes, your home is your castle, but it is also 

your identity and your possibility to be open to others. 

David Soul

VANESSA REDGRAVE, POLITICAL ACTIVISM IN ARTS

Vanessa Redgrave

Today, the weather is cold and The Grandma has preferred to stay at home watching some films. Some news arrive from the USA where they are suffering temperatures of 51 below zero. This phenomenon has a direct relatioin with the Climatic Change that scientists announce day after day but politics don't pay enough attention.

The Grandma has decided to watch some films performanced by Vanessa Redgrave, one of her favourite actresses and a great activist in political and environment causes. The Grandma admires Vanessa, her career, her films and her strong struggle for her ideas.

Before watching the Vanessa Redgrave's films, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Elementary Language Practice manual (Vocabulary 11).

More information: Vocabulary 11-Weather

Vanessa Redgrave CBE, born 30 January 1937, is an English actress of stage, screen and television, and a political activist. She is a 2003 American Theatre Hall of Fame inductee, and received the 2010 BAFTA Fellowship.

Redgrave rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since starred in more than 35 productions in London's West End and on Broadway, winning the 1984 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Revival for The Aspern Papers, and the 2003 Tony Award for Best Actress in a play for the revival of Long Day's Journey into Night. She also received Tony nominations for The Year of Magical Thinking and Driving Miss Daisy.

Vanessa Redgrave and her Golden Lion of Venice

On screen, she has starred in scores of films and is a six-time Oscar nominee, winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the title role in the film Julia (1977). Her other nominations were for Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment (1966), Isadora (1968), Mary, Queen of Scots (1971), The Bostonians (1984) and Howards End (1992). Among her other films are A Man for All Seasons (1966), Blowup (1966), Camelot (1967), The Devils (1971), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Prick Up Your Ears (1987), Mission: Impossible (1996), Atonement (2007), Coriolanus (2011) and The Butler (2013).

Redgrave was proclaimed by Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams as the greatest living actress of our times, and has won the Oscar, Emmy, Tony, BAFTA, Olivier, Cannes, Golden Globe, and the Screen Actors Guild awards.

More information: ANSA

A member of the Redgrave family of actors, she is the daughter of Sir Michael Redgrave and Lady Redgrave, the actress Rachel Kempson, the sister of Lynn Redgrave and Corin Redgrave, the mother of actresses Joely Richardson and Natasha Richardson, the aunt of British actress Jemma Redgrave, and the mother-in-law of actor Liam Neeson.

Redgrave was born on 30 January 1937 in Blackheath, London, the daughter of actors Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson.

In her autobiography, Redgrave recalls the East End and Coventry Blitzes among her earliest memories. Following the East End Blitz, Redgrave relocated with her family to Herefordshire before returning to London in 1943. She was educated at the Alice Ottley School, Worcester, and Queen's Gate School, London, before coming out as a debutante. Her siblings, Lynn Redgrave and Corin Redgrave, were also acclaimed actors.

Vanessa Redgrave entered the Central School of Speech and Drama in 1954. She first appeared in the West End, playing opposite her brother, in 1958.

Vanessa Redgrave & Joely Richardson, her daughter

In 1959, she appeared at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre under the direction of Peter Hall as Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream opposite Charles Laughton as Bottom and Coriolanus opposite Laurence Olivier, in the title role, Albert Finney and Edith Evans.

In 1960, Redgrave had her first starring role in Robert Bolt's The Tiger and the Horse, in which she co-starred with her father. In 1961, she played Rosalind in As You Like It for the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1962, she played Imogen in Cymbeline . In 1966, Redgrave created the role of Jean Brodie in the Donald Albery production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Reunited with Karel Reisz for the biographical film of dancer Isadora Duncan in Isadora (1968), her portrayal of Duncan led her gaining a National Society of Film Critics' Award for Best Actress, a second Prize for the Best Female Performance at the Cannes Film Festival, along with a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination.

More information: Macau Daily Times

In the same period came other portrayals of historical figures, ranging from Andromache in The Trojan Women (1971) to the lead in Mary, Queen of Scots (1971), the latter earning her a third Oscar nomination. She also played the role of Guinevere in the film Camelot (1967), and briefly as Sylvia Pankhurst in Oh! What a Lovely War (1969). She portrayed the character of Mother Superior Jeanne des Anges in The Devils (1971), the once controversial film directed by Ken Russell.

Later film roles include those of suffragist Olive Chancellor in The Bostonians, transsexual tennis player Renée Richards in Second Serve (1986), Blanche Hudson in the television remake of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane (1991), Mrs. Wilcox in Howards End (1992); crime boss Max in Mission: Impossible (1996); Oscar Wilde’s mother in Wilde (1997); Clarissa Dalloway in Mrs. Dalloway (1997); and Dr. Sonia Wick in Girl, Interrupted (1999). Many of these roles and others garnered her widespread accolades.

Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero, her husband

Her performance as a lesbian mourning the loss of her longtime partner in the HBO series If These Walls Could Talk 2 (2000) earned her a Golden Globe for Best TV Series Supporting Actress, as well as earning an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a TV Film or Miniseries.

In 2006, Redgrave starred opposite Peter O'Toole in the film Venus. In 2008, Redgrave appeared as a narrator in an Arts Alliance production, Identity of the Soul. In 2009, Redgrave starred in the BBC remake of The Day of the Triffids, with her daughter Joely Richardson.

In the midst of losing her daughter, Natasha Richardson, Redgrave signed on to play Eleanor of Aquitaine in Ridley Scott's version of Robin Hood (2010), which began filming shortly after Natasha's death. She was next seen in Letters to Juliet opposite her husband Franco Nero.

More information: People

She had small roles in Eva (2009), as well as in Julian Schnabel's Palestinian drama Miral (2010). She voiced the character of Winnie the Giant Tortoise in the environmental animated film Animals United (also 2010), and played a supporting role in the Bosnia-set political drama, The Whistleblower (2010). Redgrave also narrated Patrick Keiller's semi-fictional documentary, Robinson in Ruins (2010).

She also played leading roles in two historical films: Shakespeare's Coriolanus, in which she plays Volumnia; and Roland Emmerich's Anonymous (both 2011), as Queen Elizabeth I.

Since 2012, Redgrave has narrated the BBC series Call The Midwife.

Vanessa Redgrave's activism is also known. In 1961, Redgrave was an active member of the Committee of 100 and its working group. Redgrave and her brother Corin joined the Workers Revolutionary Party in the 1970s.

Vanessa Redgrave

In 1995, Redgrave was elected to serve as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.

In 2004, Vanessa Redgrave and her brother Corin Redgrave launched the Peace and Progress Party, which campaigned against the Iraq War and for human rights. Redgrave has been an outspoken critic of the war on terrorism. During a June 2005 interview on Larry King Live, Redgrave was challenged on this criticism and on her political views.

In March 2014, Redgrave took part in a protest outside Pentonville Prison in North London after new prison regulations were introduced which forbade sending books to prisoners.

In 2017 Redgrave made her directorial debut with the movie Sea Sorrow, a documentary about the European migrant crisis and the plight of migrants encamped outside Calais, France trying to reach Britain. She has heavily criticized the exclusionary policy of the British government towards refugees, stating that the British Government ...has violated these principles (of the Declaration of Human Rights) and it continues to do so, which I find deeply shameful. The UN signed the Declaration of Human Rights and now we have to employ lawyers to take the government to court to force them to obey the law. Just thinking about that makes my mind go berserk.”

More information: Xinhua Net

Ask the right questions 

if you're to find the right answers.

Vanessa Redgrave

THE RUBIK'S CUBE DEBUTS IN EARL'S COURT, LONDON

The Grandma with her Rubik's Cube in Can Déu

Today, The Grandma has gone to Can Déu Civic Centre in Les Corts, Barcelona, to participate in a Rubik's Cube Competition.

The Grandma is a great fan of this toy which made its international debut in Earl's Court, London, on a day like today in 1980.

After taking a one day-break to introduce Jordi Santanyí and before going to Can Déu, The Grandma has continued with her English studies. She has studied a new lesson of her Elementary Language Practice manual (Vocabulary 10).

More information: Vocabulary 10-Clothes

Rubik's Cube is a 3-D combination puzzle invented in 1974 by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. Originally called the Magic Cube, the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Ideal Toy Corp.

In 1980 via businessman Tibor Laczi and Seven Towns founder Tom Kremer, and won the German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle that year. 

As of January 2009, 350 million cubes had been sold worldwide making it the world's top-selling puzzle game. It is widely considered to be the world's best-selling toy.

On the original classic Rubik's Cube, each of the six faces was covered by nine stickers, each of one of six solid colours: white, red, blue, orange, green, and yellow. The current version of the cube has been updated to coloured plastic panels instead, which prevents peeling and fading. In currently sold models, white is opposite yellow, blue is opposite green, and orange is opposite red, and the red, white and blue are arranged in that order in a clockwise arrangement. On early cubes, the position of the colours varied from cube to cube.

Ernő Rubik with his Cubes

An internal pivot mechanism enables each face to turn independently, thus mixing up the colours. For the puzzle to be solved, each face must be returned to have only one colour. Similar puzzles have now been produced with various numbers of sides, dimensions, and stickers, not all of them by Rubik.

Although the Rubik's Cube reached its height of mainstream popularity in the 1980s, it is still widely known and used. Many speedcubers continue to practice it and similar puzzles; they also compete for the fastest times in various categories.

Since 2003, the World Cube Association, the Rubik's Cube's international governing body, has organised competitions worldwide and recognise world records.

In March 1970, Larry D. Nichols invented a 2×2×2 Puzzle with Pieces Rotatable in Groups and filed a Canadian patent application for it. Nichols's cube was held together by magnets. Nichols was granted U.S. Patent 3,655,201 on 11 April 1972, two years before Rubik invented his Cube.

More information: Rubik's

On 9 April 1970, Frank Fox applied to patent an amusement device, a type of sliding puzzle on a spherical surface with at least two 3×3 arrays intended to be used for the game of noughts and crosses. He received his UK patent (1344259) on 16 January 1974.

In the mid-1970s, Ernő Rubik worked at the Department of Interior Design at the Academy of Applied Arts and Crafts in Budapest. Although it is widely reported that the Cube was built as a teaching tool to help his students understand 3D objects, his actual purpose was solving the structural problem of moving the parts independently without the entire mechanism falling apart. He did not realise that he had created a puzzle until the first time he scrambled his new Cube and then tried to restore it.

The Rubik's Cube

Rubik applied for a patent in Hungary for his Magic Cube, Bűvös kocka in Hungarian, on 30 January 1975, and HU170062 was granted later that year.

The first test batches of the Magic Cube were produced in late 1977 and released in Budapest toy shops. Magic Cube was held together with interlocking plastic pieces that prevented the puzzle being easily pulled apart, unlike the magnets in Nichols's design.

With Ernő Rubik's permission, businessman Tibor Laczi took a Cube to Germany's Nuremberg Toy Fair in February 1979 in an attempt to popularise it. It was noticed by Seven Towns founder Tom Kremer and they signed a deal with Ideal Toys in September 1979 to release the Magic Cube worldwide. Ideal wanted at least a recognisable name to trademark; of course, that arrangement put Rubik in the spotlight because the Magic Cube was renamed after its inventor in 1980. The puzzle made its international debut at the toy fairs of London, Paris, Nuremberg and New York in January and February 1980.

More information: Gizmodo

After its international debut, the progress of the Cube towards the toy shop shelves of the West was briefly halted so that it could be manufactured to Western safety and packaging specifications. A lighter Cube was produced, and Ideal decided to rename it. The Gordian Knot and Inca Gold were considered, but the company finally decided on Rubik's Cube, and the first batch was exported from Hungary in May 1980.

Rubik's Cubes continued to be marketed and sold throughout the 1980s and 90s, but it was not until the early 2000s that interest in the Cube began increasing again. In the US sales doubled between 2001 and 2003, and The Boston Globe remarked that it was becoming cool to own a Cube again.

The Rubik's Cube development

The 2003 World Rubik's Games Championship was the first speedcubing tournament since 1982. It was held in Toronto and was attended by 83 participants. The tournament led to the formation of the World Cube Association in 2004. Annual sales of Rubik branded cubes were said to have reached 15 million worldwide in 2008.

In Rubik's cubers' parlance, a memorised sequence of moves that has a desired effect on the cube is called an algorithm. This terminology is derived from the mathematical use of algorithm, meaning a list of well-defined instructions for performing a task from a given initial state, through well-defined successive states, to a desired end-state. Each method of solving the Rubik's Cube employs its own set of algorithms, together with descriptions of what effect the algorithm has, and when it can be used to bring the cube closer to being solved.

More information: Hobby Lark

Many algorithms are designed to transform only a small part of the cube without interfering with other parts that have already been solved so that they can be applied repeatedly to different parts of the cube until the whole is solved. For example, there are well-known algorithms for cycling three corners without changing the rest of the puzzle or flipping the orientation of a pair of edges while leaving the others intact.

Some algorithms do have a certain desired effect on the cube but may also have the side-effect of changing other parts of the cube. Such algorithms are often simpler than the ones without side-effects and are employed early on in the solution when most of the puzzle has not yet been solved and the side-effects are not important. Most are long and difficult to memorise. Towards the end of the solution, the more specific, and usually more complicated, algorithms are used instead.

More information: Speed Cube

 Complex things, if you don't understand them, 

it seems complicated. If you understand them, 

and we know how to handle it, it became simple. 

Ernő Rubik

JORDI SANTANYÍ, THE GREAT WRITER FROM MALLORCA

Jordi Santanyí in Can Mercader, Cornellà

Ramon Llull, Joan Alcover, Miquel Costa i Llobera, Miquel dels Sants Oliver, Llorenç Vilallonga, Bartomeu Rosselló-Pòrcel, Maria Antònia Salvà, Blai Bonet, Baltasar Porcel, Biel Mesquida, Sebastià Alzamora...

They are only some of the most popular writers from the Balearic Islands, especially Mallorca. All of them were and are the most important figures of their ages and represented different movements from Medieval ages to Modern ones. From the cradle of the Catalan language with Ramon Llull to important movements like Modernism, Noucentisme or Post War Literature in the last century and Contemporany Literature in our current one.

Jordi Santanyí is a Mallorcan writer who lives in Cornellà de Llobregat, the Roman city of Cornelianus. He has just arrived to this big city to improve his career as a writer. Jordi is one of The Grandma's friends, and he is going to join to the rest of the group (Claire Fontaine, Joseph de Ca'th Lon, Tina Picotes and Tonyi Tamaki) in this amazing experience called The Grandma's Logbook.

Jordi is a great expert in literature and, because of this, today The Grandma wants to introduce him talking about his new city, Cornellà, and his passion, writing and literature.

More information: The Culture Trip

Cornellà de Llobregat is a municipality in the comarca of the Baix Llobregat in Catalonia. It is situated on the left bank of the Llobregat River. It is in the south-western part of the Barcelona metropolitan area and is part of the wider urban area. It houses one of the three La Liga football clubs from Catalonia in RCD Espanyol.

The history of Cornellà de Llobregat is defined by three principal factors: its proximity to the city of Barcelona, its being an area of passage, as was the entire County of Baix Llobregat, to and from the capital of Catalonia, and the presence of the Llobregat River. Its name is of Roman origin, Cornelianus, and the city's architectural characteristics possess Visigoth traits.

Jordi Santanyí in Cornellà de Llobregat

The first written reference to the city dates from 980 AD, at which time a church and a defense tower to ward off the Saracens already existed in the same place as the current castle, constructed in the fourteenth century.

The city was incorporated into Barcelona's territory in the thirteenth century and, for a short time, belonged to the Franqueses del Llobregat in which agricultural activity was principally developed.

More information: Consorci de Turisme-El Baix Llobregat

Literature, most generically, is any body of written works. More restrictively, literature refers to writing considered to be an art form or any single writing deemed to have artistic or intellectual value, often due to deploying language in ways that differ from ordinary usage.

Its Latin root literatura/litteratura, derived itself from littera: letter or handwriting, was used to refer to all written accounts. The concept has changed meaning over time to include texts that are spoken or sung, oral literature, and non-written verbal art forms. Developments in print technology have allowed an ever-growing distribution and proliferation of written works, culminating in electronic literature.

Literature is classified according to whether it is fiction or non-fiction, and whether it is poetry or prose. It can be further distinguished according to major forms such as the novel, short story or drama; and works are often categorized according to historical periods or their adherence to certain aesthetic features or expectations (genre).

Jordi & the Miranda Tower, Cornellà

The history of literature follows closely the development of civilization. When defined exclusively as written work, Ancient Egyptian literature, along with Sumerian literature, are considered the world's oldest literatures. The primary genres of the literature of Ancient Egypt—didactic texts, hymns and prayers, and tales—were written almost entirely in verse; while use of poetic devices is clearly recognizable, the prosody of the verse is unknown. Most Sumerian literature is apparently poetry, as it is written in left-justified lines,and could contain line-based organization such as the couplet or the stanza.

Different historical periods are reflected in literature. National and tribal sagas, accounts of the origin of the world and of customs, and myths which sometimes carry moral or spiritual messages predominate in the pre-urban eras. The epics of Homer, dating from the early to middle Iron age, and the great Indian epics of a slightly later period, have more evidence of deliberate literary authorship, surviving like the older myths through oral tradition for long periods before being written down.

More information: History

Literature in all its forms can be seen as written records, whether the literature itself be factual or fictional, it is still quite possible to decipher facts through things like characters' actions and words or the authors' style of writing and the intent behind the words. The plot is for more than just entertainment purposes; within it lies information about economics, psychology, science, religions, politics, cultures, and social depth.

Studying and analyzing literature becomes very important in terms of learning about human history. 

Literature provides insights about how society has evolved and about the societal norms during each of the different periods all throughout history. For instance, postmodern authors argue that history and fiction both constitute systems of signification by which we make sense of the past. It is asserted that both of these are discourses, human constructs, signifying systems, and both derive their major claim to truth from that identity.

Literature provides views of life, which is crucial in obtaining truth and in understanding human life throughout history and its periods. Specifically, it explores the possibilities of living in terms of certain values under given social and historical circumstances.

More information: History Today

Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary 

about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary 

words something extraordinary.

Boris Pasternak

CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON A.K.A. LEWIS CARROLL

Lewis Carroll

Today, The Grandma is at home resting and preparing new exciting ideas for this year. She is working very hard in some interesting projects that she is going to explain in her blog.

Tomorrow, The Grandma is going to welcome a new member of her adventures, Jordi Santanyí, a magnificent writer who she has known in Palma. Jordi Santanyí is the character who is going to talk to you about Literature and Writing since tomorrow.

After an exciting night of Mallorcan culture, The Grandma has decided to not going out and stay at home reading interesting books like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a masterpiece written by Lewis Carroll an amazing author who was born on a day like today in 1832.

Before reading about Carroll, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Elementary Language Practice manual (Vocabulary 9).

More information: Vocabulary 9-Animals

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832-14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English writer of world-famous children's fiction, notably Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass. He was noted for his facility at word play, logic and fantasy.

The poems Jabberwocky and The Hunting of the Snark are classified in the genre of literary nonsense. He was also a mathematician, photographer, and Anglican deacon.

More information: The British Library

Carroll came from a family of high church Anglicans, and developed a long relationship with Christ Church, Oxford, where he lived for most of his life as a scholar and teacher. Alice Liddell, daughter of the Dean of Christ Church, Henry Liddell, is widely identified as the original for Alice in Wonderland, though Carroll always denied this.

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson a.k.a. Lewis Carroll

Dodgson's family was predominantly northern English, with Irish connections, conservative and high church Anglican. Most of Dodgson's male ancestors were army officers or Church of England clergy. His great-grandfather, also named Charles Dodgson, had risen through the ranks of the church to become the Bishop of Elphin. His paternal grandfather, another Charles, had been an army captain, killed in action in Ireland in 1803 when his two sons were hardly more than babies. The older of these sons –yet another Charles Dodgson– was Carroll's father.

He went to Westminster School and then to Christ Church, Oxford. He reverted to the other family tradition and took holy orders. He was mathematically gifted and won a double first degree, which could have been the prelude to a brilliant academic career. Instead, he married his first cousin Frances Jane Lutwidge in 1830 and became a country parson.

Dodgson was born in the small parsonage at Daresbury in Cheshire near the towns of Warrington and Runcorn, the eldest boy but already the third child. Eight more children followed. When Charles was 11, his father was given the living of Croft-on-Tees in North Yorkshire, and the whole family moved to the spacious rectory. This remained their home for the next 25 years.

More information: Oxford Dictionaries

Charles's father was an active and highly conservative cleric of the Church of England who later became the Archdeacon of Richmond and involved himself, sometimes influentially, in the intense religious disputes that were dividing the church. He was high church, inclining toward Anglo-Catholicism, an admirer of John Henry Newman and the Tractarian movement, and did his best to instil such views in his children. Young Charles was to develop an ambiguous relationship with his father's values and with the Church of England as a whole.

In 1846, Dodgson entered Rugby School where he was evidently unhappy. He left Rugby at the end of 1849 and matriculated at the University of Oxford in May 1850 as a member of his father's old college, Christ Church. After waiting for rooms in college to become available, he went into residence in January 1851. He had been at Oxford only two days when he received a summons home. His mother had died of inflammation of the brain –perhaps meningitis or a stroke– at the age of 47.

First Edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

His early academic career veered between high promise and irresistible distraction. He did not always work hard but was exceptionally gifted and achievement came easily to him.

In 1852, he obtained first-class honours in Mathematics Moderations and was shortly thereafter nominated to a Studentship by his father's old friend Canon Edward Pusey.

In 1854, he obtained first-class honours in the Final Honours School of Mathematics, standing first on the list, graduating Bachelor of Arts. He remained at Christ Church studying and teaching, but the next year he failed an important scholarship through his self-confessed inability to apply himself to study. Even so, his talent as a mathematician won him the Christ Church Mathematical Lectureship in 1855, which he continued to hold for the next 26 years.

More information: BBC

Despite early unhappiness, Dodgson was to remain at Christ Church, in various capacities, until his death, including that of Sub-Librarian of the Christ Church library, where his office was close to the Deanery, where Alice Liddell lived.

From a young age, Dodgson wrote poetry and short stories, contributing heavily to the family magazine Mischmasch and later sending them to various magazines, enjoying moderate success.

Between 1854 and 1856, his work appeared in the national publications The Comic Times and The Train, as well as smaller magazines such as the Whitby Gazette and the Oxford Critic. 

Lewis Carroll

Most of this output was humorous, sometimes satirical, but his standards and ambitions were exacting. I do not think I have yet written anything worthy of real publication, but I do not despair of doing so some day, he wrote in July 1855. Sometime after 1850, he did write puppet plays for his siblings' entertainment, of which one has survived: La Guida di Bragia.

In 1856, he published his first piece of work under the name that would make him famous. A romantic poem called Solitude"appeared in The Train under the authorship of Lewis Carroll. This pseudonym was a play on his real name: Lewis was the anglicised form of Ludovicus, which was the Latin for Lutwidge, and Carroll an Irish surname similar to the Latin name Carolus, from which comes the name Charles.

The transition went as follows: Charles Lutwidge translated into Latin as Carolus Ludovicus. This was then translated back into English as Carroll Lewis and then reversed to make Lewis Carroll.

More information: The Guardian

Dodgson's existence remained little changed over the last twenty years of his life, despite his growing wealth and fame. He continued to teach at Christ Church until 1881 and remained in residence there until his death. The two volumes of his last novel, Sylvie and Bruno, were published in 1889 and 1893, but the intricacy of this work was apparently not appreciated by contemporary readers; it achieved nothing like the success of the Alice books, with disappointing reviews and sales of only 13,000 copies.

The only known occasion on which he travelled abroad was a trip to Russia in 1867 as an ecclesiastic, together with the Reverend Henry Liddon. He recounts the travel in his Russian Journal, which was first commercially published in 1935. On his way to Russia and back, he also saw different cities in Belgium, Germany, partitioned Poland, and France.

He died of pneumonia following influenza on 14 January 1898 at his sisters' home, The Chestnuts, in Guildford. He was two weeks away from turning 66 years old. His funeral was held at the nearby St Mary's Church. He is buried in Guildford at the Mount Cemetery.

Download Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

If you don't know where you are going, 

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Lewis Carroll

'ELS FOGUERONS DE SANT ANTONI DE SA POBLA', GRÀCIA

The Grandma contemplates the Correfoc (Fire run)

Today, Claire Fontaine and The Grandma have enjoyed with the Majorcan community in Barcelona, which has celebrated Sant Antoni, a traditional and popular festival in the island.  

Barcelona is formed by ten districts and more than 70 neighbourhoods.

One of the most active neighbourhoods is Gràcia, where people usually occupy squares and streets to celebrate cultural events.

Before visiting Gràcia, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Elementary Language Practice manual (Vocabulary 8).

More information: Vocabulary 8-Food & Drink

The Sant Antoni bonfire festival held in Gràcia is actually a Mallorcan tradition that has been brought to this Barcelona neighbourhood. It consists mainly of some exhibitions of popular culture from the Principality and Mallorca performed, for example, by capgrossos, xeremiers, castellers and diables -groups of big-headed figures, pipers, human-tower builders and firework-toting devils. Even though this tradition has been imported, it is now firmly established in the Gràcia neighbourhood and local people treat it as their own.

Three days of events and activities kick off at the Centre Artesà Tradicionàrius with Mallorcan folk songs and a chance to taste some of the typical food you can eat on the island. The centre holds a dance and concert with groups from Mallorca as a warm-up for the celebrations the following day.

Preparing the dinner in Plaça del Diamant, Gràcia

Because on Saturday evening there is a big cercavila and correfoc –a musical procession and fire run– staged by popular culture groups from sa Pobla and Gràcia, plus the odd guest sometimes. This procession is accompanied by the festival organisers from the district town hall to Plaça de la Virreina, where they light a big bonfire for a night of fire-roasted sausages, folk dances and folk songs with a Mallorcan label. The festival is held in honour of St Anthony who, according to tradition, is the patron saint of animals, especially hoofed animals. Legend has it that he was a great friend of animals and, when he saw one that was injured, he took care of it.

More information: Illes Balears

The Feast of St Anthony is held on 17 January, the day he died. However, the Mallorca festival is copied in Gràcia on the last weekend in January, because the popular culture groups from Sa Pobla –the caparrots, the dimonis d’Albopàs and the xeremiers  (pipers)– can come over then.

Antoni Torrens, a Sa Pobla resident who received the Barcelona Medal of Honour in 1997, suggested building a bonfire like those in Mallorca in Plaça de Diamant in 1992 so his sons, who were studying in Barcelona, could enjoy this revetlla mallorquina, a festival-eve celebration from the island.

Since then, more streets have joined in each year with their own bonfires, more of the local popular culture groups have got involved and the festival has developed into what it is today.

Have you ever wandered among bonfires in the streets of Barcelona in the midst of winter? Have you ever eaten sausages cooked over an open fire in the middle of a square? If you haven't and you'd like to tick that off your list of things to do in your lifetime, don't miss the Sa Pobla a Gràcia celebration.

Enjoying a Mallorcan dinner

Sa Pobla is a small town in Mallorca, where, every year for the feast day of Saint Anthony, they put on an ancestral and traditional party with bonfires, xeremiers who play types of flutes and bagpipes, plus ximbombes (friction drums), wandering poetry recitals and singers of traditional folk songs.

In 1993 the tradition made its way to the streets and squares of Barcelona's Gràcia neighbourhood, and ever since, the party has been a reason for natives of Mallorca, Menorca and Eivissa, and other Balearic islanders to come together and celebrate, whether they're just visiting or live in Barcelona.

With traditional dancing, food, music, and yes, bonfires called foguerons in the middle of the street, get ready to join one of the most traditional festivals in Mallorca, without leaving Barcelona.

Although Saint Anthony's feast day is January 17, the Gràcia bonfires are lit the last weekend of the month so that groups from Sa Pobla come from Mallorca over to Barcelona for the celebration. This year the big day is last Saturday of January. Things kick off at noon with a session of folk music in the Lesseps, Estrella, Llibertat and Abaceria markets, with Mallorcan xeremiers and glossadors. At night activities get underway when the groups all meet up in Plaça de la Vila for traditional dances that lead into the parade, which sets out for Plaça de la Virreina. There, the bonfires are lit and the party really gets started.

If you're interested in more, before the big day there are plenty of related activities on as well. At the Centre Artesà Tradicionàrius (C.A.T.) bar, there is a tasting of Mallorcan products, brought to you by Glosadors de les Illes and Cor de Carxofa. The show is shared among three centres in Gràcia: the C.A.T., La Violeta de Gràcia and the Orfeó Gracienc.

There will be a traditional Mallorcan dance, ball de bot, by a historic group from the Islands, S'Estol des Gerricó and it possible to take a class to learn the most traditional Mallorcan dances, and then put them into practice in the square.

More information: Mallorca Photoblog

With patience and persistence, even the smallest act 

of discipleship or the tiniest ember of belief can become 

a blazing bonfire of a consecrated life. 

In fact, that's how most bonfires begin, as a simple spark.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf