MARCH, Ausiàs. – He is the most representative poet of the Catalan Renaissance, born in Valencia around 1397, and died there in 1459.
His 128 poems, divided into *Cants d’amor*, *de la mort*, and *morals*, suggest less a Petrarchist than a belated troubadour, so evident is the influence of the Provençal poets. He sang of love, but with anguish and remorse, and only found serenity in the death of the beloved woman. The summit of his religious ascent is marked by the *Cantic espiritual*: an anxious longing for death and an invocation to God so that the poet might believe and be saved. His style, predominantly austere, sometimes assumes clear elegances, while, amid subtleties of thought and metric complexities, he develops an assiduous and unflinching inner exploration, the fruit of March’s familiarity with Scholasticism. Notable is his devotion to the Virgin. Among Catalan poets, Verdaguer (v.), none has attained his fame or greatness.