Joan Maragall
| Joan Maragall i Gorina | |
|---|---|
Joan Maragall, by Pau Audouard dated 1903.
|
|
| Born |
10 October 1860 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain |
| Died | 20 December 1911 (aged 51) Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain |
| Occupation | Poet, translator, journalist |
| Literary movement | Modernisme |
Joan Maragall i Gorina (Catalan pronunciation: [ʒuˈam məɾəˈɣaʎ]) (10 October 1860 in Barcelona – 20 December 1911) was a Spanish Catalan poet, journalist and translator, the foremost member of the modernisme movement in literature. His manuscripts are preserved in the Joan Maragall Archive of Barcelona.
Maragall's upper-class family was dedicated to the flourishing textile industry 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 in Barcelona, and was proclaimed Mestre en Gai Saber. His private home in Sant Gervasi was bought by the Biblioteca de Catalunya and can be visited.
His grandson, Pasqual Maragall, would become mayor of Barcelona and then President of Catalonia.
Maragall's poetry was based on themes drawn from human life and nature. Highly influenced by German-language authors such as Nietzsche, Novalis and Goethe, all of which he translated into Catalan, his poetry went through decadentist and vitalist periods. 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.
...
Wikipedia