La metàfora de bronze. El procés de monumentalització a J. Verdaguer (1902-1924)

Abstract

La metàfora de bronze. El procés de monumentalització a J. Verdaguer (1902-1924)   The history of the Catalan poet J. Verdaguer’s monument in Barcelona is very tormented and begins just after the priet’s death at the very beginning of the century. The monument’s vicissitudes are a symbol of the bankrupt of a certain policy and of the ruling class of the first quarter of our century. The essay take us back to Barcelona’s social milieu in these years when Catalanism was slowly asserting itself, amidst very high social and trade-union tensions.

S. Rusiñol, offering in a theatrical piece (El Místic) his own reading of Verdaguer’s personality, gives an image of the man which shall be totally disregarded in the monument’s inaugural addresses which, in 1924, chose rather to emphasize Verdaguer’s Hispanity «gloria de la raza española».