"Adéu-siau bressol de ma infantesa": Catalonia and the Anthropocene

Abstract: Jacint Verdaguer's poem "Dolça Catalunya" expresses longing—in a Romantic mode—for the valleys, rivers, and mountains he left behind at the end of the nineteenth century while on his way to America. Today, mountains, valleys, trees, along with the words that named them, are not only vanishing from us because of distance. They are progressively vanishing, perhaps forever, due also and foremost to the destructive effects of the Anthropocene. The article explores the effects of the Anthropocene on Catalan language and culture, understanding the latter in its deeply etymological/agricultural sense of "cultivation."