Joan Maragall i Gorina (; 10 October 1860 in Barcelona – 20 December 1911) was a

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

poet, journalist and translator, the foremost member of the ''

modernisme ''Modernisme'' (, Catalan for "modernism"), also known as Catalan modernism and Catalan art nouveau, is the historiographic denomination given to an art and literature movement associated with the search of a new entitlement of Catalan cultur ...

'' movement in literature. His manuscripts are preserved in the Joan Maragall Archive of Barcelona.

Life

Maragall's upper-class family was dedicated to the flourishing

textile industry The textile industry is primarily concerned with the design, production and distribution of yarn, cloth and clothing. The raw material may be natural, or synthetic using products of the chemical industry. Industry process Cotton manufactu ...

in Barcelona, and after finishing school, Joan Maragall took on his father's job. Having never liked his family's trade, he decided to go to university instead, where he studied law to his father's great disappointment. However, he dropped out of school and married Clara Noble with whom he had 13 children. In 1904 he won all three prizes awarded by the ''

Jocs Florals Floral Games were any of a series of historically related poetry contests with floral prizes. In Occitan, their original language, and Catalan they are known as '' Jocs florals'' (; modern Occitan: ''Jòcs florals'' , or ''floraus'' ). In French t ...

'' in Barcelona, and was proclaimed ''Mestre en Gai Saber''. His private home in Sant Gervasi was bought by the

Biblioteca de Catalunya The Library of Catalonia ( ca, Biblioteca de Catalunya, ) is the Catalan national library, located in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The primary mission of the Library of Catalonia is to collect, preserve, and spread Catalan bibliographic produc ...

and can be visited. He died in 1911 and was buried at the

Sant Gervasi Cemetery Sant Gervasi Cemetery founded in 1853, is located in the district of Sarrià-Sant Gervasi in Barcelona, Spain. With an extension of 12,229 m², the area divided into two parts by a staircase leading to the cemetery chapel. It includes 4773 plots. N ...

Barcelona. His grandson,

Pasqual Maragall Pasqual Maragall i Mira (; born 13 January 1941) is a Spanish politician and former President of Generalitat de Catalunya. He had previously been Mayor of Barcelona, from 1982 to 1997, and helped run the city's successful Olympic bid. Early ...

, would become mayor of Barcelona and then

President of Catalonia The President of the Government of Catalonia ( ca, President de la Generalitat de Catalunya, ) is one of the bodies that the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia stipulates as part of the Generalitat de Catalunya, others being the Parliament, the gov ...

Work

Maragall's poetry was based on themes drawn from human life and nature. Highly influenced by

German-language German ( ) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is also a ...

authors such as Nietzsche,

Novalis Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg (2 May 1772 – 25 March 1801), pen name Novalis (), was a German polymath who was a writer, philosopher, poet, aristocrat and mystic. He is regarded as an idiosyncratic and influential figure of ...

and

Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as tre ...

, all of which he translated into Catalan, his poetry went through periods of

decadentism The Decadent movement (Fr. ''décadence'', “decay”) was a late-19th-century artistic and literary movement, centered in Western Europe, that followed an aesthetic ideology of excess and artificiality. The Decadent movement first flourished ...

and vitalism. He is best known for his 'theory of the living word', or ''teoria de la paraula viva'', which advocated Nietzschean vitalism and spontaneous or even imperfect writing over colder and over-thought poetry. In addition to his poetry writing, Maragall published journalism in avant-garde magazines of the time—including L'Avenç, Catalònia and Luz—where he became the leading proponent of Catalan modernisme. Maragall supported

Iberian Federalism Iberism ( Aragonese, Basque, Galician, Portuguese and Spanish: ''Iberismo''; ast, Iberismu; Catalan and Occitan: ''Iberisme''), also known as pan-Iberism or Iberian federalism, is the pan-nationalist ideology supporting a unification of all ...

Poetic works

*''Poesies'' (1895) *''Visions i Cants'' (1900) *''Les Disperses'' (1904) *''Enllà'' (1906),

Fastenrath Award Two institutions grant the Fastenrath Awards: Fundación Premio Fastenrath awards writers of Spanish nationality and their Spanish works and Premi Fastenrath for Catalan works. Both were instituted with the posthumous legacy of Johannes Fastenrat ...

1910. *''Seqüències'' (1911) **includes the poem ''

La fageda d'en Jordà LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figure ...

Digitized works

Digitization is available through the porta
El món de Joan Maragall: Col·lecció visual de la vida i l'obra de l'autor
or directly a
Memòria Digital de Catalunya

References

External links

Maragall Archive at National Library of Catalonia

Digitized works of Joan Maragall
at National Library of Catalonia
Year Joan Maragall 2010-2011
*

(Spanish)
Vídeo ''Joan Maragall''
(Catalan)
Joan Maragall vist per Jordi Maragall i Noble
(Spanish) * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Maragall, Joan 1860 births 1911 deaths Poets from Catalonia Writers from Barcelona Modernisme architects Renaixença writers Modernisme writers German–Catalan translators 19th-century translators Members of the Institute for Catalan Studies