Ángel Guimerà
(Ángel Guimerà i Jorge; Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1845-Barcelona, 1924) Spanish playwright in the Catalan language.He belonged to a Catalan family from El Vendrell (Bajo Penedés) accidentally established in the Canaries.When he was seven years old, his relatives returned to Catalonia, and the boy lived in El Vendrell and later in Barcelona, where he studied at the Escuelas Pías until his father took him to the manor house with him.
Ángel Guimerà
When, on the death of his father, Guimerà settled permanently in Barcelona, he was already known as a poet in the literary circles of the Catalan capital; There, together with Francesc Mateu and his inseparable friend Pere Aldavert, he founded the fortnightly magazine La Renaixença , an organ of literary and political Catalanism, of which he was a collaborator and later director.
In 1874 he joined the group of "Jove Catalunya" and actively participated in the political and cultural movement that advocated the establishment of Catalan autonomy.In the Floral Games of 1875 his historical poetry "Indíbil i Mandoni" was awarded; the following year he obtained the natural flower with the composition "Cleopatra", and in 1877 he was proclaimed "mestre en gai saber" at the same festival where L'Atlàntida , by Jacint Verdaguer, was awarded.His patriotic poems (in which he sang the past glories of Catalonia) and his fiery and eloquent speeches were the best propaganda in favor of the country's political demands.
In 1895, elected president of the Ateneo Barcelonés, he delivered the inaugural speech of the course in Catalan for the first time, a fact that had a great literary and political resonance.Meanwhile, Ángel Guimerà had written and premiered a series of dramatic works that were as many hits.It was the first Gala Placidia (1879), followed by Judit de Welp (1883), Sea and sky (1888) and L'ànima morta (1892), all with tragic nuances.
A second cycle of realistic and social background productions began in his stage production, in which María Rosa (1894) and Tierra Baja stand out.> (1896), his two best plays; the second was translated into almost all European languages and turned into opera.On May 23, 1909, the city of Barcelona paid the poet a great tribute to which all of Catalonia joined.The day of his death was one of mourning for all Catalans, without distinction of social or political nuances, and his burial was one of the largest and most heartfelt popular demonstrations that are remembered in Barcelona.His life and work were also officially commemorated in Madrid in 1925.
Ángel Guimerà's work
Guimerà was essentially a dramatic poet's temperament.His poetic work is gathered in two volumes: Poesies (1887) and Segon llibre de poesies (1920).In the first collection the romantic tone and legendary, historical and biblical themes predominate, in the manner of Victor Hugo or Giosue Carducci.His powerful fantasy requires wide spaces and episodes of great plot possibilities, many of which the poet will later fix in his theater.
In the lyrical genre, in addition to the already mentioned compositions dedicated to the Iberian leaders Indíbil and Mandonio or to Queen Cleopatra, the great poem "Any thousand", a spectacular painting that describes the eager agitation of the crowds penitents who felt the imminence of the cosmic catastrophe of the end of the world.The poet finds at every step the terrifying word, the heartbreaking contrast.
In historical poetry the theme of death is frequently imposed ("El cap d'en Josep Moragues", "La mort d'en Jaume d'Urgell", "En la mort de Joan II d'Aragó "), and in them an overflowing romanticism is combined with crude naturalistic brushstrokes.In "Judit de Welp" and "El cant del diable" there are lurid notes and contrasts of a shocking baroque style.In his second book of poetry lyrical compositions prevail, with a sentimental, loving and familiar tone, some of them rooted in the popular.
But poetry was certainly not the most appropriate field for Guimeranian inspiration, even though it managed, exceptionally, pieces of great delicacy.Joan Maragall affirms that Guimerà is the great lyricist of the Catalan Renaissance, which could only be accepted in a very broad sense.In fact, our author gave his maximum measure in the theater, a genre in which the strength of his dramatic spirit was manifested.
His historical tragedies ( Gal.la Placídia , Judit de Welp , El fill del rei , Mar i cel , Rei i monjo ) are a reflection of the romantic tendencies of the Catalan Renaissance, which began at the beginning of the second third of the century, and of the author's temperament, who through distant characters at the time it gave the passionate and wild note artistically contrasted with features of the most tender humanity.
In his second era, that of modern dramas, Guimerà expresses the same primary feelings and contrasted with characters of his time, humble and simple, in which, however, the same passions that animate his figures of historical or legendary tragedy.In his maximum successes ( Maria Rosa and Terra Baixa ) he manages to elevate characters without external prestige or emotional complexities to symbols. María Rosa is the drama of revenge, as Terra Baixa is of innocence.Within the same naturalistic cycle he produced other appreciable works, such as La festa del blat , Mossèn Janot , The sinner (1903), etc.
Guimerà's stage production offers, finally, a third group of works that a critic has described as symbolists, and that could rather be called idealists.The social ideas of our author were of a noble simplicity that bordered on candor, and the poet wanted to expose them in dramas that include a more or less revolutionary thesis, some of which are from his first and second periods ( The Queen vella , 1908; The young queen , 1911).Others already correspond to his time of decadence, such as Jesus who turns (1917), a pacifist work composed as a result of the First World War, and L'ànima és meva (1919 ) or Joan Dalla (1922), which are patriotic exaltation and correspond to a period of great political effervescence in Catalonia.
Guimerà's speeches were published in 1906 under the title Cants a la Pàtria .In 1909 the volume Glorioses appeared, which contains various poems, narrations and fragments, and has an apologetic prologue by Joan Maragall.In 1904 our poet was nominated for the Nobel Prize; Official pressures from the Spanish government managed to divert the attention of the Swedish Academy in favor of the playwright José Echegaray, who was the one who obtained the precious award.
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