Gabriel Ferrater i Soler (; 20 May 1922 – 27 April 1972) was an author, translator and scholar of linguistics of the sixties who wrote in the

Catalan language Catalan (; autonym: , ), known in the Valencian Community and Carche as ''Valencian'' (autonym: ), is a Western Romance language. It is the official language of Andorra, and an official language of three autonomous communities in eastern ...

. His poetical work is one of the most important among the authors of post-war Catalonia and he continues to exert a great deal of influence over authors nowadays. He published three collections of poems: ''Da nuces pueris'' (1960), ''Menja't una cama'' ("Eat a leg", 1962) and ''Teoria dels cossos'' ("Theory of bodies"), consequently compiled into a single volume called ''Les dones i els dies'' ("Women and days", 1968), which was a milestone in Catalan literature.

Work

His early influences were Thomas Hardy,

W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a p ...

Ausiàs March Ausiàs March (Catalan and ; 1400March 3, 1459) was a medieval Valencian poet and knight from Gandia, Valencia. He is considered one of the most important poets of the "Golden Century" (''Segle d'or'') of Catalan/Valencian literature. Biog ...

. Erotism and longing for time lost are constant topics in his work. The poems ''In memoriam'' and ''Poema inacabat'' ("Unfinished poem") are some of the most open testimonies of the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, link ...

and its consequences, which could be felt at the time he was writing. His style was realistic but plenty of odd images and highbrow sources. Ferrater was an atypical intellectual who had an important influence on the following generations. His poetic work was similar to Robert Graves, Robert Frost or

W.H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...

. He was a professor of linguistics and literary criticism at the

Autonomous University of Barcelona The Autonomous University of Barcelona ( ca, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; , es, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona; UAB), is a public university mostly located in Cerdanyola del Vallès, near the city of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain. ...

and wrote essays and articles on linguistic theory at the

Serra d'Or ''Serra d'Or'' () is a Catalan magazine that appeared in October 1959. It was promoted by a group of university students, and was published by the Montserrat abbey press, with a monthly circulation of 8.000 copies. Origins The origins of the magaz ...

magazine between 1969 and 1972, under the title ''De causis linguae'', including a draft for a metrical theory based on the phonological elements in Chomskyan grammar. He translated into Catalan

Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typi ...

's ''

The Trial ''The Trial'' (german: Der Process, link=no, previously , and ) is a novel written by Franz Kafka in 1914 and 1915 and published posthumously on 26 April 1925. One of his best known works, it tells the story of Josef K., a man arrested and p ...

'', ''Language'' by

Leonard Bloomfield Leonard Bloomfield (April 1, 1887 – April 18, 1949) was an American linguist who led the development of structural linguistics in the United States during the 1930s and the 1940s. He is considered to be the father of American distributionalis ...

, and ''Cartesian linguistics'' by

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky i ...

. He killed himself in April 1972 in his Sant Cugat flat using a mixture of barbiturates and alcohol.

References

External links

*
Ferrater at Visat, revista digital de literatura i traducció del PEN

Article at the Enciclopèdia CatalanaEscriptors.cat. Available in English
*

Núria Perpinyà Núria Perpinyà Filella (; born 1961) is a Catalan novelist, a playwright and an essayist. Senior Lecturer in Theory and Comparative Literature at the university of Lleida in Catalonia, Spain. Her novels deal with unusual topics and are character ...

, ''Gabriel Ferrater: Reception and Contradiction'', Empúries, Barcelona, 1997. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ferrater, Gabriel Catalan-language writers Poets from Catalonia Autonomous University of Barcelona faculty People from Reus Linguists from Catalonia Translators to Catalan Drug-related suicides in Spain 1972 suicides 1922 births 20th-century translators 20th-century Spanish poets 20th-century Spanish male writers