The reception of Josep Maria de Sagarra’s Commedia during the Franco regime

Abstract

This paper examines the reception of Sagarra’s translation of the Commedia during the Franco era. The first section describes live readings of the text for private audiences, according to diaries from that period; due to the censorship of the time, those readings were held exclusively for small groups of friends and colleagues. Reference is also made to the speech that Sagarra made at the 16th Annual Festival of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans. The second part examines the distribution of the bibliophile edition based on archival documentation preserved by the editors. The first volume was a clandestine publication, which was later followed by second and third volumes, which were published legally. The final section describes the reviews that appeared in the press of the second edition published in Clàssics de Tots els Temps. There were twelve in total, and although some of these reviews were commissioned by the editors of the collection, similar ideas prevail in each review.