Manuel de Montoliu i de Togores

Manuel de Montoliu y de Togores (30 April 1877 – 18 May 1961) was a prominent Spanish critic and historian.

Biography

He was born in Barcelona, the second son of Plàcid-Maria de Montoliu i de Sarriera and his wife Pilar de Togores i de Zafortesa. He was the brother of Francesc de Montoliu and Cebrià de Montoliu. Of Tarragona descent on his father's side and Mallorcan on his mother's side, he studied at the Jesuits in Manresa and obtained his doctorate in Philosophy and Letters in Madrid in 1903, after studying in Barcelona.

In 1908, together with Antoni Griera and Pere Barnils, he obtained a scholarship from the Provincial Deputation of Barcelona to study Romance philology at the University of Halle, under Bernhard Schädel and Hermann Suchier. Familiar with the German language and methods, he worked as a reader of Spanish and Catalan at the University of Hamburg.

Having returned to Barcelona to take up a chair of literature at the University of Barcelona, ​​he worked in the Lexicographical Offices of the Institute for Catalan Studies, where he collaborated on the Boletín de Dialectología Catalana and edited, with Pompeu Fabra, the Aguiló Dictionary. From 1925, his teaching work took place in Argentina, where he directed the Institute of Philology at the University of Buenos Aires. Back in his hometown, he resumed his university chair.

In 1936 he fled to France during the civil war. After the death of his wife (1943) he temporarily went to live in the Poblet Abbey. From 1945 onwards he worked for cultural institutions in the province of Tarragona. Montoliu's publications (monographs and editorial work in Spanish and Catalan) are almost countless. In addition, he translated a wide range of works from Latin, French, Italian, English and German, into both Catalan and Spanish. He translated works by Karl Vossler, including The History of Italian Literature, Positivism and Idealism in Linguistics, Stifter's Hochwald, Dante's Vita Nuova, Pascal's Pensées, as well as works by John Ruskin, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Hawthorne, Molière, Loti, Anatole France and many others. He was a member of the Royal Academy of the Good Writings of Barcelona.

Works

Literary studies

• Estudis de literatura catalana (1912)
• Manual d'història crítica de la literatura catalana moderna. Primera part (1823-1900) (1922)
• Breviari crític (1926–1933; 4 volumes)
• Crònica del rei en Jaume I, el conqueridor (1926)
• L'Obra de Narcís Oller (1928)
• Cervantes y sus elogios a Barcelona (1928; with J. M. Casas)
• Llenguatge i poesia. Quatre assaigs (1929)
• Literatura castellana (1930)
• Goethe en la literatura catalana (1935)
• Bonaventura Carles Aribau. Joaquim Rubió i Ors (1935)
• Aribau i la Catalunya del seu temps (1936)
• El alma de España y sus reflejos en la literatura del siglo de oro (1942)
• Antología de poetas románticos (1942; editor)
• Pin y Soler. Escritor humanista e independiente (1947)
• Triptico del "Quijote" (1947)
• Elucidario crítico (1947)
• La vida i l'obra de Joaquim Ruyra (1949)
• Cuatro etapas en la evolución de la literatura catalana moderna (1956)
• José Yxart. El gran crítico del renacimiento literario catalán (1956)
• Les grans personalitats de la literatura catalana (1957–1962; 8 volumes)

Biographies

• Vida de Cervantes (1915; 1948)
• Vida de Napoleón (1916)
• Vida de Jaime I, el conquistador (1921; 1947)
• Vida de Gonzalo de Córdoba (El Gran Capitán) (1923)
• Vida de Francisco Pizarro (1927)

Miscellanea

• Primeres poesies (1901)
• Llibre d'amor. Cants intims (1903)
• Gramática de la lengua castellana. Tercer grado (1914)
• Hamburg in seiner politischen, wirtschaftlichen und kulturellen Bedeutung. Hamburgo, su desarrollo politico, económico y cultural (1922)
• Leyendas de Poblet (1945; 1947)
• Tarragona, símbolo. Visiones, leyendas, evocaciones (1951; 1953)
• Memorias de infancia y adolescencia (1958)

References

• Fontcuberta, Judit (2007). "Manuel de Montoliu. La necessitat de traduir." In: Ramon Panyella, ed., La projecció social de l'escriptor en la literatura catalana contemporània: Actes del Congrés Internacional, Barcelona/Bellaterra, 26, 27 i 28 d'octubre de 2005. Barcelona: Punctum, pp. 333–44.
• Vilarrubias, Felio A. (1963). Homenaje al excmo. sr. d. Manuel de Montoliu y de Togores, 1877-1961, vocal del Patronato y cronista de la resurrección de Poblet. Poblet: Patronato del Real Monasterio de Poblet.

External links

• Works by Manuel de Montoliu i de Togores at National Library of Spain
• Works by Manuel de Montoliu i de Togores at Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library