Tirant lo Blanc

Tirant lo Blanc

Tirant lo Blanc is considered to be the best novel of its kind. A chivalric romance filled with the usual hunts, battles, banquets, romantic conquests, duels, and knights. Tirant lo Blanc started a flood of chivalric tales after its publication. The stories that followed, however, were full of fantasy, filled with enchantments, dragons, sorcerers and the like. Tirant greatly differed from these books that followed it. Its highly praised for its realistic, down to earth story line, and characters similar to real Catalans in the late 15th century. It is a satirical look at chivalric doings of the time. Another novel of this kind would not follow for another hundred years, when Miguel de Cervantes would write Don Quixote. While Don Quixote has been praised for its literary excellence, Cervantes himself claims that "it's the best book of its kind in the world," and goes so far as to mention that fact in his own satirical comedy.

Despite its literary value, the book has remained relatively unknown. This has been attributed to many factors, from controversy over the author(s) to passages that were considered to be racy during the time it was published.

It is generally held that Joanot Martorell wrote most, if not all, of Tirant lo Blanc. Martorell was the son of the kings chamberlain in Valencia. He started Tirant in 1460, and the controversy ensues over whether he was able to finish the unpublished work upon his death in 1468. Little is known about Marti Joan de Galba, who claims to have written the last fourth of the novel. He also dies before the book the book is finally published in the 1490s, and the matter is still debated today. The main argument against the idea that de Galba wrote the latter portion of the novel is that there is no substantial difference in either vocabulary and style through out the novel. This implies it is the work of solely one author.

Another controversy surrounding the authors of the book deals with the fact that Martorell calls his story a translation, first from English, then to Portuguese, and finally into Catalan. Many problems surround this statement. The first being that no earlier manuscripts or even references to these supposed earlier translations can be found.