Jacint Verdaguer
Jacint Verdaguer’s remarkable literary achievement lies not only in his masterful epics of Spain and Catalonia but also in his prolific shorter narrative and lyric poetry that engaged the popular imagination of his time and place. Written over 40 years, Verdaguer’s essentially Romantic literary production numbers more than 30 volumes of poetry ranging from foundational epics (L’Atlàntida and Canigó) and shorter epics (Dos màrtirs de ma pàtria, Llegenda de Montserrat, A Barcelona) to devotional and inspirational poems (“Sant Francesc,” “Jesús Infant,” “Flors del Calvari,” “Roser de tot l’any,” “Santa Eularia”).
The outstanding success of Verdaguer’s works fueled the 19th-century Catalan literary renaissance, the Renaixença, by tapping the rich potential of the Catalan language, whose medieval heyday had lapsed into a vernacular hiatus of some three centuries. Praise for Verdaguer by leading Spanish critics such as Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo and by writers of other emerging, non-nation-state literatures, such as Frédéric Mistral of Provence, attests to the triumphant reception of Verdaguer beyond cultural and linguistic borders. He continues to enjoy immense popularity, and many of his poems, including “L’emigrant,” “El virolai,” and “La mort de l’escolà,” have second lives as popular songs known throughout Catalonia and beyond. The many streets and avenues that bear his name and the monuments that stand in his honor attest to Verdaguer’s literary and cultural achievement, his enduring popularity, and his unique place of privilege in Catalan letters.
Born and raised in the village of Folgueroles, near Vic, Spain, Verdaguer began his studies at the seminary at age 10. There his classes in rhetoric and poetics opened up to him the world of classic literature in Greek and Latin, the Spanish baroque, and the French Romantics. He gleaned a remarkable wealth of popular prosody and lore from his vital surroundings by working at age 17 as a live-in farmhand and tutor to young children for a family at a nearby farmhouse. In his early 20s, Verdaguer was awarded prizes for his poetry at the Jocs Florals in Barcelona and founded a literary group in Vic with like-minded friends.
Ordained to the priesthood at age 25, he was assigned to a village north of Vic as a parish priest. While carrying out his churchly duties, the young poet-priest continued to write popular devotional and mystical poetry and work on his poem of Atlantis, begun some years earlier.
Suffering from severe headaches, Verdaguer sought medical care in Barcelona, and in 1874, friends helped him secure a post as ship’s chaplain for the Companyia Transatlàntica. He made nine crossings to Cuba and Puerto Rico, then Spanish colonies, and in addition to recovering his health, he finished his epic poem L’Atlàntida. Along with the international renown the poem brought, the good graces of the shipping magnate Antonio López, marquis of Comillas, landed him a new post as the family chaplain. From 1877 to 1889, the poet’s most productive years, Verdaguer traveled extensively on foot throughout the Catalan Pyrenees, making several ascents to the summit of Mount Canigó and several other among the highest peaks in the region, garnering the legend and lore that he molded into his second, arguably greatest, foundational epic poem: Canigó.
On his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Verdaguer suffered a personal crisis. As almoner for the family of the second marquis, Claudi López, Verdaguer sought to ramp up their charitable allotments for Barcelona’s poor. Separately, he came into contact with a group of fervent devotees who were privy to supernatural visions and exorcisms.
The marquis enlisted the help of the bishops of Barcelona and Vic to have Verdaguer sent away on the pretext that he needed a rest. The ensuing clash between the bishops and the priest, which included suspension of Verdaguer’s duties and functions as a priest, triggered a counterattack in which Verdaguer published two series of articles in Barcelona’s left-leaning press defending his faith and integrity. The matter was finally settled in 1897 in Madrid, thanks largely to the Augustinian friars at El Escorial; Verdaguer’s functions as an active priest were restored, and he was reassigned to the Church of Bethlehem on Las Ramblas.
Prematurely aged and in failing health, Verdaguer fell seriously ill in March 1902, likely with tuberculosis, and spent his final days at Vil·la Joana, a house in Vallvidrera in the hills above Barcelona, where he died on June 10. His body was transported to the cemetery at Montjuïc overlooking Barcelona and the sea. Along the way, some 300,000 mourners bid him farewell—the most ever for a public funeral in Barcelona—in spontaneous testimony to the huge popularity of Catalonia’s national poet.
Biography written by Ronald Puppo.