Regarded as one of Europe’s most important poets of the late nineteenth century, Jacint Verdaguer (1845–1902) provided the modern poetic foundations for the reemergence of Catalan literature after three centuries of the language’s suppression by Spain’s absolutist monarchs. Verdaguer’s popular epic, civil, and religious verse poeticized the unique status of Catalonian tradition, progress, and history in the Romantic framework of European nation-building.
Selected Poems is the first book-length translation of Verdaguer’s works into English. Ronald Puppo offers readable and faithful verse adaptations of poetry from all periods of the poet-priest’s life, from his days as a seminary student and farmhand to his journeys as a ship’s chaplain and eventual spiritual crisis. These adroit translations will recover Verdaguer as a major figure in the modern literary tradition of the West, restoring him to the pantheon of world letters.
