Joan Maragall

Joan Maragall i Gorina ( born October 10, 1860 in Barcelona, † December 20, 1911 ) was a Catalan poet. He was the main representative of the literary modernism and the most influential poets of Catalan Modernism.

Life

As the youngest child and only son eies textile manufacturers Joan Maragall should take over the company later. However, he studied law from 1884 and devoted himself to his poetic and literary inclinations. Although he helped in 1886, after a bad investment to save his father's business, but retired after back from the shops back in order to continue to be active in publishing.

Maragall was during his lifetime a recognized poet and journalist whose opinion in intellectual circles and beyond was much. Ear one of the main drivers for the desired modernization of Catalan culture, the so-called Modernism, which, inter alia, to showed and newspaper articles for Diario de Barcelona and La Veu de Catalunya - in his participation to several publications of this cultural flow - L' Avenc, Catalonia i Luz. He identified himself with the traditional and Catholic Catalan bourgeoisie, but turned down offers by Enric Prat de la Riba and Francesc Cambó from political to get involved and to provide as an MP to vote.

Despite its more conservative and generally apolitical stance he would urge the occasion of the riots of the Setmana Tragica of 1909 the bourgeoisie to greater social responsibility, criticized the solidified, the people alienated from the Church's practice and sat open to the convicted to death anarchist educators Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia one. At the national level, he was a proponent of an Iberian federation in Spain, Catalonia and Portugal should be equal partners.

Maragall married in 1891 Clara Noble; the couple had 13 children, including the sculptor Ernest Maragall. Joan Maragall died 51- years old having an as " Febre de Malta " ( brucellosis ) diagnosed disease. His death sparked dismay at his funeral in Barcelona Thousands were present.

Today, almost every Catalan village, numerous schools and a park in Barcelona are named after him beside roads. His house is a museum and archive ( Arxiu Joan Maragall ). The double anniversary year 2010/2011 ( 150th anniversary, 100th anniversary of his death ) was committed in Catalonia as " Any Maragall " with numerous events, publications and projects, which are documented on a dedicated website. His grandson Pasqual Maragall was 1982-1997 (ie also during the Olympic Games of 1992 ) mayor of Barcelona from 2003 to 2006 and President of the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Catalan autonomous government; Another grandson, Ernest Maragall, 2006-2010 was the Minister of Education.

Work

Maragall wrote his entire poetic work in his native language Catalan, many of his journalistic articles and essays he wrote against it in Spanish. In 1881 he won with the poem Din sa cambra ( "In his room," ) the price Flor Natural at the prestigious Joes Florals.

His poetry is characterized by the use of unsophisticated everyday language and by the pursuit of simplicity and immediacy of feeling; his poetic principles he brought in the theory of " paraula viva " ( living word ) for expression.

During his lifetime, published seven volumes of poetry, plus several collections of newspaper articles and essays. Of his Complete Works four editions have been created so far.

Maragall intensively studied German literature and culture apart, especially with Goethe - whose fist he translated and its Nausicaa fragment he developed into a separate drama - with Nietzsche and with Novalis. He also translated among others works Homer, Schiller, Reinic, Wagner, Daudet and Lamartine and contributed to the development of Catalan as a modern literary language decisively.