Catalonia's towering Romantic poet and rebel priest, Jacint Verdaguer (1845-1902), delves deep into the Catalan imaginary in his foundational long poem Mount Canig (1886), recounting the historical and legendary mix, both tragicand triumphant, of the medieval origins of modern Catalonia. The collision between duty and love is mirrored by the symbolic conflict between, on the one hand, a powerful folk mythology rooted in the natural geography and, on theother, the widely institutionalized universalism of Christianity concomitant to the reconquest of the Iberian peninsula. Rich in lyrical and thematic correspondence with long poems ranging from La chanson de Roland, Ariosto's Orlando Furioso and Spenser's Faerie Queene to Milton's Paradise Lost, Longfellow's Evangeline and Tennyson's Idylls of the King, Verdaguer's masterful verse rivals all the legendary magic andwonder of the mountains themselves.

Jacint Verdaguer is regarded as one of the greatest poets of Catalan literature.

Ronald Puppo is the translator of Selected Poems of Jacint Verdaguer: A Bilingual Edition. Mount Canig A Tale of Catalonia is published in association with Editorial Barcino.

Winner of the 2016 "Serra d'Or" Critics Award for Research in Catalan Studies