The Blood Of Sant Jordí

Spain and England's greatest literary figures are linked through death. Or they would be if the widely held belief that Miguel de Cervantes died on the same day as William Shakespeare wasn't apocryphal. Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616. Cervantes didn't. He died the day before and was buried on 23 April.

Many years earlier, in 303AD to be precise, there was an important death in the province of Bithynia, an ancient region of north-west Turkey. It was also on 23 April. On that day in history, Saint George, having already been subjected to appalling torture, was beheaded at the order of one of the Roman Empire's greatest psychopaths, the Emperor Diocletian.

Saint George, as I think we probably all know, went on to secure the gig as the patron saint of England and to bequeath to the country his cross, one to now typically be seen adorning hotel balcony railings in Mallorca during World Cup tournaments. Georgios, to give him his original Greek name, is a patron saint several times over, and included among his patronage are Aragon, Catalonia and the city of Barcelona, where he isn't of course referred to as George or Georgios but as Sant Jordí.

The Barcelona association is such that the city has something in common with England - the cross of Saint George. It is incorporated into the city's flag. For Mallorca, the association isn't as strong, but Sant Jordí is very much celebrated here. He is, after all, a former patron saint from the days when Mallorca was part of the Crown of Aragon.

Prior to sainthood, George, aka Jordí, was a knight of considerable talent, and his greatest achievement occurred in the village of Montblanc in what wasn't known as Catalonia all those hundreds of years ago. Back then, dragons were seemingly wandering the countryside wreaking mayhem wherever they breathed fire, and one dragon in particular was terrorising Montblanc. In order to placate the dragon, which apparently was angered because it had eaten all the local animals and so had nothing else to feast on, it was decided to offer it a human sacrifice. Unfortunately for the king's daughter, she drew the short straw. It would have been even more unfortunate for her had it not been for the intervention of our gallant knight, Jordí. He thrust his lance into the dragon and, as it died, it spewed out blood, and from that blood was to grow a rose bush.

This, at any rate, is the legend, and it is important for more than just the story of the slaying of the dragon. There was also the rose bush for, some time in the fifteenth century, it became common in Catalonia for a red rose to be given by a knight to his beloved. And, because Sant Jordí had met his terrible end on 23 April, this was the day when the roses were given.

The tradition survives, but it is one to which was added a more modern element. If "knights" were presenting their loved ones with a rose, what should the loved ones give in return? The contemporary tradition of the book and the rose on Sant Jordí's day was conceived in 1923 when book publishers decided to make 23 April the day of the book, not because of Sant Jordí so much but because of Cervantes. Nonetheless, it was useful to be able to come up with a commercial opportunity by playing a little fast and loose with the date of Cervantes' death and tying it in with the day of the rose. Book met rose, and publishers, bookshops and florists were delighted.

The celebration of Sant Jordí in Mallorca, in official ways, is mainly a celebration of the book part of the equation. There will, therefore, be book fairs in all sorts of places on 23 April, but no feast day in Mallorca is ever allowed to exist in isolation. Consequently, Sant Jordí's day can be more than one day or it can be a whole week or, in the case of Colonia Sant Jordí (where else), a week and a half.

Actually, this is stretching things a bit. The first act of the fiestas was on Thursday, the opening of a photography competition. Nothing else is in fact happening until Tuesday, but if they want to announce the fiestas as being from 16 to 25 April, then who is anyone to object?

So, if you are a knight and you have a loved one to whom you wish to give a book, which should you choose? What about something by Cervantes? Not "Don Quijote" but his short stories, "Novelas ejemplares", because one of these is called "La fuerza de la sangre" (the power of blood). And from blood grew a rose bush.

The Book Of The Absurd

Gabriel García Márquez should have held on for a few more days, preferably until the twenty-second or the twenty-third of the month. Had it been the twenty-second, he would have died on the same day in 1616 as Miguel de Cervantes. If the twenty-third, it would have been the same day as Cervantes was buried. It would also have been World Book Day and Saint George's Day, aka (in Catalan) the Diada de Sant Jordi.

García Márquez was the modern Cervantes; his story-telling elevated him to an equal status. They are the two greatest novelists in the Spanish language and they both left an enormous legacy. With Cervantes it was "Don Quijote" and quixotism. García Márquez gave us the epic "One Hundred Years Of Solitude" and magical realism. This combination of the everyday with the fantastical will not pass into dictionary usage in the way that quixotism has, but magical realism is an enduring element of contemporary culture. The juxtaposition of the normal and the absurd can, for example, describe much comedy. As such, García Márquez placed the real next to the surreal. It was story-telling with a splash of Dalism.

There was a common thread to these two literary greats' work. The absurd. A reason why Cervantes is still so meaningful today is that quixotism, the pursuit of impractical ideals that can lead to absurd consequences, might be used as a metaphor for certain political, societal or business aims. If one were being really harsh, one might describe the whole European "project" as quixotic. But then one would have to have a real downer on Europe in order to do so.

The death of García Márquez has been met in Spain with grief tempered with pride at his literary achievements. But though he attained a status to match Cervantes, for the Spanish there is one very crucial difference. He wasn't Spanish. He was a standard-bearer for the Spanish language and so therefore for the notion of "Spanishness", but having been Colombian he can't be claimed as Spain's own.

Placing Cervantes and García Márquez on a similar pedestal, one separated by over three centuries, should offer a pause for thought. Despite a rich literary tradition, Spanish has failed to produce novelists or other writers of genuinely global legendary status. Cervantes died, remarkably enough, only one day before William Shakespeare, just one writer in English among numerous others with legendary status. Germany has given several - Böll, the Brothers Grimm, Grass, Hesse, Thomas Mann. French has been about as prolific as English - Honoré de Balzac, Albert Camus, Gustave Flaubert, Victor Hugo, Guy de Maupassant, Marcel Proust, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Émile Zola, the list goes on.

Spain possessed global presence and the Spanish language still possesses global diffusion and usage. A one-time great power, criteria were in place for literary cultural export in the original language and in translation. Yet somehow, it never really happened in the sense that Spanish writers did not attain the reputations of those from other major European powers. I am trying to think of a good explanation as to why, but I'm struggling.

One conclusion might be that Spain, regardless of one-time empire and that global presence, was and remained on the cultural periphery in European terms. But if this was the case with written culture, the same can't be said for other artistic endeavours. In the last century alone, Spain provided three towering figures to the world of art - Dali, Miró and Picasso. It has also provided the greatest of all - Francisco de Goya.

Whatever the reason, it will probably not be being mulled over too closely on 23 April. Thanks to some clever marketing by Spanish book publishers back in 1923, the burial date of Cervantes was chosen to be the day of the book. It has since become a worldwide "day", having been adopted by UNESCO. That the day happens to also be St. George's Day is just a coincidence. But the Diada de Sant Jordi is as much to do with books - more so in fact - than a saint's day.

Almost inevitably, the day is a day to proudly promote a Catalan literary tradition that was, for so many years during the last century, buried by proscription. In Sa Pobla there is a special honouring of Miquel López Crespí, a native of the town, a writer, novelist, poet and historian.

López Crespí will not be a familiar name. It is certainly not one that has travelled round the world. Yet here is a remarkable man who as a teenager was arrested in 1963 and tortured because of his opposition to the Franco regime. In honouring him, there is an honouring also, thanks to Ramon Llull, of a literary tradition - one in Catalan - which predates Spanish tradition. As a man of literature, López Crespí will doubtless recognise the greats in Castellano - Cervantes and García Márquez. But he would doubtless also reflect on the absurd. Books, in whatever language, should not be proscribed.