Interview with Ignasi Moreta Tusquets, editor and university professor

Ignasi Moreta: “Maragall was clearly someone ahead of his time”

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Andreu Navarra

Ignasi Moreta (Barcelona, 1980), editor and university professor, along with Lluís Quintana Trias, also a professor of Catalan Language and Literature at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, has recently published a monumental three-volume critical edition of Joan Maragall’s prose works. This edition, part of the Biblioteca Clàssica Catalana series by Edicions 62, spans nearly 2,800 pages.

Have you gone mad?

Well, yes, it is indeed 2,800 pages of Joan Maragall’s prose, the result of twenty years of work. It might seem like a colossal project at first glance, but with two decades, a great deal can be accomplished. When you see the case with the three volumes—complete with edited texts, critical apparatus, notes, and so on—you feel that the effort has been entirely worth it.

How would you describe the state of Maragall’s prose when you began this project? What was its editorial history up to that point?

Maragall passed away in 1911. Between 1912 and 1961, four editions of his Obras Completas (Complete Works) were published. The first, often called Edición de la Viuda (the Widow’s Edition), was initiated by Maragall’s widow, Clara Noble, and consisted of 11 volumes. It was a pioneering effort, the first attempt to collect Maragall’s dispersed texts from newspapers. However, it was incomplete and somewhat outdated, as it predated the critical advances made by Pompeu Fabra.

Next came the Edición de los Hijos (Children’s Edition), undertaken by Maragall’s children, particularly Joan Anton Maragall i Noble. It was published in 25 volumes between 1929 and 1936 (though the last volumes are dated 1936, they were released later—part of this country’s historical circumstances—and volume 25 is dated 1945). The Hijos edition is beautifully crafted, with meticulous typographic care. However, it poses practical challenges: consulting 25 separate volumes is cumbersome, and the articles are organised by language and subject, which is also not particularly user-friendly.

In 1947, Selecta publishing house, founded by Josep M. Cruzet (my maternal grandmother’s brother) released a one-volume edition, later expanded into two volumes in 1960-61. While more accessible, these editions were not typographically elegant—thin paper, cramped pages, and small fonts made them challenging to read.

“In the first fifty years after the author’s death, Maragall’s complete works were published every fifteen years”

Despite these efforts, the editorial criteria in these editions varied significantly. The philological tools of early 20th-century Catalan scholarship were less developed than today. However, they remain four projects of collected works over fifty years, from Maragall’s death to 1961. Therefore, in the first fifty years after the author’s death, Maragall’s complete works were published every fifteen years. In contrast, since 1961, we have had to rely on the old two-volume edition by Selecta, which has been reprinted multiple times.

No new editions emerged in the sixty years since Selecta’s. It was high time for a fresh critical edition. The edition we now present combines the typographic precision of the Edición de los Hijos with the practicality of Selecta. Thanks to the editorial expertise of Jordi Cornudella at Edicions 62, we have a perfectly crafted set of three volumes encompassing all of Maragall’s prose. It must be said that the paper is wonderful, as is the text box, the font size, the line spacing… these are aspects that enhance the readability of the edition. The arrangement of the texts is neither thematic nor linguistic, as in Hijos and Selecta, but chronologically—a neutral and reader-friendly approach—. We do not want to direct the reading, but rather offer a service to the reader by providing the texts in the most careful way possible. That is why we have refrained from interpretive introductions and extensive annotations.

The articles occupy volumes 1 and 2 of the Prosa. In volume 3 of the Prosa, we bring together the scattered works and the unpublished works, that is, the gasetillas¹, speeches, prefaces, books, various writings, and the unpublished books

What obstacles did you face during the process, and what insights did you gain along the way?

We rigorously compared texts with editions published during Maragall’s lifetime and, where possible, with manuscripts. Articles published in the Diario de Barcelona were cross-checked with the original newspaper text, and we documented editorial variants in the critical apparatus. The articles that Maragall compiled in the volume Artículos de 1904 have also been cross-referenced with the text as it appeared in that volume, with any variations between editions being noted in the critical apparatus. Maragall’s oeuvre includes numerous dispersed texts, speeches, and minor works, which required extensive archival and library research.

“We were particularly pleased to compile the gasetillas—what we would today call short news items, notices, or reports—anonymous texts that Maragall wrote as a contributor for Diario de Barcelona”

We have attempted to document all possible texts by Maragall. For example, we were particularly pleased to compile the gasetillas—what we would today call short news items, notices, or reports—anonymous texts that Maragall wrote as a contributor for Diario de Barcelona. He covered, for example, the inauguration of an orphanage school in Sant Julià de Vilatorta, judicial reports, concert reviews, and theatre critiques. These are texts that had never been republished and we have retrieved them directly from the pages of the newspaper. These gasetillas are anonymous, but we have been able to attribute them to Maragall because he refers to them as his own in his correspondence. It is likely that what we are publishing is only a small portion of all the anonymous works Maragall wrote for Brusi.

The compilation of speeches is also notable, especially the Elogi de la paraula. Additionally, we have included prefaces to works by other authors, such as the preface to Llibre que conté les poesies d’en Francesc Pujols (1904), where he anticipates ideas that he will later develop in the Elogi de la poesia.

Who is Joan Mañé i Flaquer?

Joan Mañé i Flaquer was the distinguished director of Brusi, the popular name of Diario de Barcelona. Maragall began working for Brusi in 1890 and published signed articles between 1892 and 1903. He then left the newspaper, returned in 1905-1906, left again, and came back once more in 1911, the same year of his death. Maragall worked as a journalist at Diario de Barcelona under Mañé i Flaquer, who represented the interests of Barcelona’s conservative bourgeoisie, though with some nuances. For instance, in religious matters, Mañé aligned himself with the ideas of French liberal Catholicism, quite open-minded, as opposed to ultramontane Catholicism.

Mañé i Flaquer is a multifaceted figure (studied in depth by Jordi Bou), and Maragall was his right-hand man in the final years. Their relationship was complex and not without conflicts, as Mañé’s conservatism often clashed with Maragall’s intellectual boldness. Despite these tensions, Brusi served as a platform for Maragall’s ideas, making their relationship ultimately fruitful.

Was the Joan Maragall who started working for Diario de Barcelona the same person we encounter in La ciudad del perdón?

Well, kind of. The first Maragall, who wrote his early articles for Brusi, was a disguised editorialist: he acted as a spokesperson for the newspaper’s editorial line. Did Maragall feel comfortable in this role? Not entirely. The proof of this is that, when he could, he approached the topics of his articles from different perspectives, resorting to polyphony. Thus, while he defended the editorial line of the paper, he also left space for alternative viewpoints, preserving his intellectual independence.

Therefore, when we read the texts of the early Maragall in Diario de Barcelona—where he criticises parliamentarism, the jury system, universal suffrage, feminism, etc.—we must understand that he was acting as a spokesperson for an external ideology. This becomes evident when he abandons this role as a hidden editorialist: when Maragall finds his own voice, all these topics disappear.

What was Teorías meant to be?

Teorías was to be a book that Maragall planned to publish with the Ollendorf publishing house in Paris, through the mediation of Eugeni d’Ors. However, the project did not materialise, even though Ollendorf had paid an advance for the manuscript that d’Ors never delivered to Maragall. When Maragall retrieved the manuscript, he revised it to prepare the book Elogios, which is the one we are publishing. It is a beautifully written work by Maragall in Spanish, as he was a great writer in the Spanish language. Elogios was developed from previously published articles, which Maragall reworked and integrated into a unified whole.

“My favourite Elogio is “Elogio de una tarde de Agosto”. In this text, Maragall describes a spectacular outdoor performance of Oedipus Rex by Sophocles in Cauterets”

Which Elogio do you find most intriguing?

The most important Elogio is “De la poesia“, a fundamental text for understanding Maragall’s poetics. A beautiful Elogio is “Del vivir“, a text with extraordinary power. But my favourite Elogio is “Elogio de una tarde de Agosto”. In this text, Maragall describes a spectacular outdoor performance of Oedipus Rex by Sophocles in Cauterets, a town in the south of France where Maragall went to take the waters. This performance took place in 1903. In the article, Maragall tells us, the readers who are reading him after his death, that in the moment of our reading, the time of the “remote Oedipus”, the time of Sophocles, the time of the performance in Cauterets, the time of the writing and first publication of the article, and our present time all converge. It is an extraordinary appeal to the reader, as if Maragall had foreseen everything, even our emotion as we read it. It is the last text in the final volume of the Prosa: the reader approaching the edition might want to start here.

Why Maragall? Or was it Maragall who chose you?

I began reading Maragall as a child. One of the first poems I memorised was the one that starts with the verse, “La ginesta altra vegada…”. My grandfather, Marcel·lí Moreta, gave me the poetic anthology of Maragall prepared by Carles Riba and the Llibre de lectura of Maragall by Antoni Comas. Around the age of fourteen or fifteen, it was also my grandfather who put in my hands the book by Josep Benet, Maragall i la Setmana Tràgica. There, I discovered the texts Maragall wrote in response to the events of the Semana Trágica, which deeply impacted me. They made me realise that Maragall was not just an author of beautiful poems one could memorise, but also the author of a profoundly rich body of thought. Of course, at fourteen, I could not yet formulate it this way, but I distinctly remember having the feeling that Maragall was an author who made one think. Gradually, I became aware that Maragall was my author.

“Joan Maragall’s prose reflects an author willing to rethink many things. For example, the relationship between time and eternity”

At university, when it came time to decide the topic for my first doctoral thesis, it was clear to me that I had to focus on the religious thought of Joan Maragall. So, my relationship with Maragall is long-standing. I believe I can say, now that I am 44, that I have been reading Maragall with some depth for nearly thirty years.

What does the prose of Joan Maragall still teach us?

Joan Maragall’s prose reflects an author willing to rethink many things. For example, the relationship between time and eternity. Maragall questions the classical framework which states that we first live time, and that, based on how we live it, a subsequent eternity of joy or suffering is determined in an otherworldly realm. Maragall argues that eternity does not follow time, but that we find it within time. It is the moment of joy that expands and becomes eternal.

But there are many other themes in his prose. For example, the eternal question of the relationship between Catalonia and Spain. On this matter, many of Maragall’s texts seem to have been written today. For example: Does Catalonia have the right to certain degrees of self-governance, delegated from a decentralising state, or does this self-governance arise from the historic rights of the nation? These debates were already present in Maragall’s time and continue to be relevant today.

This means that when we read Maragall’s prose, we are not doing so for historicist reasons — to understand the climate of an era — but because we find texts that shed light on issues that are still being debated today. In this regard, there are even things Maragall says that I believe we understand better today than his contemporaries did. I think we can say that Maragall was clearly someone ahead of his time.

“Maragall did not want to be an “organic intellectual,” but an independent intellectual. And that is why he refused to be part of the electoral lists”

How would you define his relationship with the Lliga Regionalista?

The Lliga tried to recruit Maragall, to include him in their lists to run for parliament. Both Cambó and Pijoan explain this. But Maragall said no: he wanted to preserve his intellectual independence. Maragall, of course, had great ideological affinity with the Lliga Regionalista, led by Prat and Cambó, but he was not willing to lose his independence. This is very clear in 1909, with the Semana Trágica. The Lliga supported the repressive policies of the Maura Government, but Maragall distanced himself. Maragall did not want to be an “organic intellectual,” but an independent intellectual. And that is why he refused to be part of the electoral lists.

What are the plans of Fragmenta publishing house?

At Fragmenta, we continue to work towards publishing excellent books of essays by contemporary and past authors — writers who reflect deeply on both human and divine matters, sometimes with a divine perspective, other times with a human one. Recently, we have been very interested in giving a voice to young authors, children of secularisation, to see how the symbolic legacy of religions is interpreted by people who have not been raised with any religious belief. This has led to the collections Pecats Capitals, Assaltar la Bíblia, and Deu Manaments, all directed by Anna Punsoda. We are also relaunching the Dialogal journal, now also under Anna Punsoda’s direction. We hope the journal will become an instrument for debate and cultural impact, because a journal’s purpose is to contribute to public discourse. Dialogal aims to be a journal that engages with social and cultural topics, while also being open to spiritual discourses.

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¹ Short, often informal articles or pieces of writing that are typically published in newspapers or periodicals.

Source: educational EVIDENCE

Rights: Creative Commons