Josep Romeu i Figueras (Òdena, Anoia, 1917 - Barcelona, 2004)PhD in Arts and essayist, poet and literary critic, his activities as a promoter of culture are also noteworthy for including such achievements as founding the Societat Catalana d'Estudis Històrics (Catalan Society of Historical Studies), the well-known review Ariel and the Centre d'Estudis Comarcals d'Igualada (Igualada Centre of Regional Studies).

Over half a century he published more than 150 works, on poetry, theatre and other genres, so that he has become a key reference for scholars of Catalan literature. Notable among his publications are his contributions to reading twentieth-century Catalan poets with books like Sobre Maragall, Foix i altres poetes (1984) and Guia de lectura de Sol i de dol, de J. V. Foix (1985). His contributions in the field of traditional literary and cultural aspects of Catalan culture are also important, such as his work on popular Catalan poetry and songs, these activities sometimes being connected with another of his passions, musicology.

His earliest vocation was as a poet and he published his first works in the difficult decade of the 1940s. After Terra, published in Melilla in 1943, he produced several collections based on traditional Catalan poetry, all of them introducing an evolution of classical forms, as other writers of the time were doing. Obra Poètica, published in 1951, seemed to be the last of his publications in poetry but, in the 1990s, he surprisingly produced some new works, including Tots els poemes (1993), which brought up to date a sincere and rigorous literary oeuvre.

He was a honorary member of Associació d'Escriptors en Llengua Catalana (AELC, Association of Catalan Language Writers).



Web page: X. R. Trigo for AELC.
Documentation: AELC.
Translation: Julie Wark.
Photographs: © Romeu i Figueras famili archive.