Formentera seen from the outside..
The Greek Strabo was probably the first to mention Formentera in his Geography. It was the first century B.C. and he called it "Ophioussa" which Pliny the Elder - who died in 79 A.D. - translated as "the island of snakes". - translated by "the island of snakes". The contemporary name, which dates back to the thirteenth century, also keeps its secrets, although it is generally believed to have originated from wheat, which adorns the national flag. In any case, this change of name is above all the proof of an evolution: from the island that sheltered snakes (and more often than not pirates who found there a valuable hiding place in the Mediterranean), it became a nourishing island where inhabitants lived permanently. From there to think that life flowed quietly, to the rhythm of the waves and the wind blowing in the ears of corn, would be a rather presumptuous shortcut. Proof of this is the epic by the Icelandic diplomat and poet Snore Sturlusson (1179-1241) - known in French as La Saga de Sigurd le Croisé Jorsalfar et de ses frères Eystein et Olaf -
which depicts a horrific battle during which many natives, living in a cave, perished at the hands of the Norwegian Vikings.Four centuries later, the island appears again under a somewhat desolate air since in La Diane amoureuse (Classiques Garnier editions), it is uninhabited and a refuge for the survivors of a terrible shipwreck. However, Formentera can be proud to serve as a backdrop, for a few pages, to the work written by the Valencian Gaspar Gil Polo in 1564, a text that he wanted as a sequel to the Siete libros de la Diana (1559) by Jorge de Montemayor. In fact, this pastoral novel had an immense influence on European literature, and it is even said that it guided the later research of Shakespeare (for The Tempest, published in 1611) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Finally, the eighteenth century is hardly more flattering, as the title chosen by the prolific German playwright August von Kotzebue suggests: Der Eremit auf Formentera
. This figure of the island hermit was staged in Peter Ritter's opera of the same name in 1788, but it also appeared in the background of certain other texts, notably Gil Polo. Paradoxically, if Formentera does not always seem to make fiction writers dream, it seems on the contrary to fire the imagination of scientists. It must be said that after having been the object of a geographical (and pragmatic) study by Vargas Ponce in 1768(Descripciones de las islas Pythiusas y Baleares), it attracted at the beginning of the 19th century scientists who were pursuing a project of a much more ambitious scale: measuring an arc of the meridian. This geodesic expedition had a repercussion in literature, since it was probably thanks to it - and through a friend, brother of François Arago, astronomer, who made the calculations with another Frenchman, Jean-Baptiste Biot - that Jules Verne discovered Formentera and decided to write about it in Hector Servadac: voyages and adventures through the solar world published in 1877 by Hetzel.... and seen from the inside
Whether they have visited or not, the island inspires foreign authors, but what about native writers? To tell the truth, literature has not been a matter of course on Formentera for many centuries, at least not in the traditionally accepted form of being written down in black and white. Indeed, as rich as the oral tradition is, books are rare, and this is due to two reasons, both of which are related to the modest size of the island, like two sides of the same coin. The size of Formentera is almost like an island, it is less than 85 square kilometers, which has slowed down the development of its infrastructure, especially when compared to Ibiza, where the appearance of the press - which welcomes the writings of emerging writers - and schools - because in Formentera there is a lack of money and the future of the sons of peasants is limited, and means are needed to study far away - is much earlier. The second explanation is also linked to this small scale: when the population barely exceeds 10,000 souls, what need is there to fix in writing what can be shared orally? This is all the more true in the case of poetry - an art that the inhabitants of Formentera are just as fond of as those of Ibiza - and in the case of storytelling, that infinite wealth that has been passed on since the dawn of time by word of mouth during traditional wakes. Because if the writing is not mastered by all, it does not mean that everyone is devoid of imagination, on the contrary the word is lively and wants to be structured, even severely versified, when it does not become songs. In fact, the cantades were a feature of collective celebrations and had the same importance as the traditional dances, which followed two basic rhythmic sequences: a la llarga and a la curta. Finally, a specificity of Formentera, which was declared an asset of cultural interest in 2005, is the Christmas (or Easter) caramelles, songs sung in churches by two men, one accompanied by castanets, the other by an espasí (a typical Balearic instrument). The caramelles were sung using the same technique as the cantades: the cantar redoblat, which consisted of vibrating the vocal chords at the end of the sentence to obtain a guttural sound (which sometimes drowned out the poor rhyme). This folklore began to be lost in the mid-twentieth century, as it had to face the civil war and its severe restrictions. Nowadays, every effort is made to preserve it, which has led to the collection of songs and the publication of anthologies of tales and legends, usually inspired by nature, animals and landscapes, such as Rondaies de Formentera, compiled by Joan Castelló Guasch from 1876. Traditional culture has often inspired writers, such as Marià Aguiló i Fuster (1825-1897) who in 1853 collected the story of Don Enric and Don Blasco in La Mola and incorporated it into his great Romancer popular de la terra catalana published forty years later. More recently, in the 1980s, the Obra Cultural Balear de Formentera decided to reward artists working to safeguard intangible heritage by awarding "Pep Simon Awards", prizes bearing the name of a traditional singer.
The contemporary era
In the middle of the twentieth century, the island experienced a real evolution, global and societal, generated by the strong development of tourism, this wave of hippies (or beatniks, depending on) that has created a myth, unverified and unverifiable since there are no photographs recorded and the only witness to the presence of the future Nobel Prize in Literature 2016 has since died, but it seems that Bob Dylan lived on the island during the spring of 1967. Anecdote aside, the purchasing power increases when the cultural offer diversifies, students become professors and periodicals appear (Poble de Formentera) that begin to publish them. Finally, the political question - in the broadest sense of the word - was on everyone's lips, and this led to the publication of works of reflection such as Ecologia de Formentera by Santiago Costa Juan (1985) or Formenteras a Cuba (1996) by Jaume Verdera i Verdera, which evoked the expatriation. The awareness of social problems - raised again by the wars at the beginning of the century - and the need to forge and define an identity of one's own explain the multiplication of books questioning History, to name but a few: Historia de una isla by José Luis Gordillo Courcières in 1981, Dos ensayos sobre Formentera by the same author in 1983 or Arquitectura defensiva de Formentera
by Eduardo J. Posadas López in 1995. Juan Bautista Costa Juan was interested in the past of the merchant navy, while Pius Tur i Mayans had a passion for music. The novel genre does not yet seem to animate local authors, but it is nevertheless explored by the islanders of adoption, whether they settle in Formentera for a longer or shorter time. Thus, the Dutchman Bert Schierbeek (1918-1996) published two stories largely influenced by his new environment: Weerwerk in 1977 and Betrekkingen in 1979, and he also published a collection of poems, soberly titled Formentera (1984), which was translated into Catalan, English and French (by Royaumont, but the title is unfortunately out of print). Although born on the mainland in 1908, Francesc Masdeu Giménez lived in Formentera from 1949 until his death in 1991. He wrote several novels, the most famous being Rita la hija del normando (1983), directly inspired by local folklore. This teacher also versed in theater, an art that seems to seduce the islanders, perhaps because the disguise was already present in the popular tradition on days of jubilation, Carnival or Nights of the Three Kings. At the beginning of the 20th century, it became an educational tool thanks to Lluís Andreu Minguet (Valencia, 1898-Alzira, 1976), a trait that has remained with him as evidenced by the Rondaies de Guasch, which were adapted on stage for young audiences in the 80s. School activity par excellence, the theater also appeals to adults, so much so that at the dawn of the 2000s local troupes began to tour outside the island. The artists first took over foreign plays before starting to write, and Vincent Ferrer i Mayans was praised in 2006 for Carnatge, l'últim nibelung. He is also editor of theEncyclopedia of Ibiza and Formentera and writes comic book scripts(Història de les Pitiüses). Finally, poetry remains popular, and the next generation seems to be Iris Palomo Ribas, born on the island in 1980, who was awarded the Art Jove prize in 2001 for Lección magistral.
