“The poem is an unshakeable experience”: Pere Gimferrer, awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Barcelona
PRESS RELEASE
News
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Institutional
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Academic
20/03/2025
This Thursday, the Paranymph Hall of the University of Barcelona hosted the honorary doctorate ceremony for Pere Gimferrer. Among the attendees were renowned personalities such as the writer Eduardo Mendoza, the artist Perejaume, the poet Vicenç Altaió and the filmmaker Poldo Pomés. The ceremony was presided over by the rector of the UB, Joan Guàrdia, and Jordi Marrugat, lecturer from the Faculty of Philology and Communication, acted as Gimferrer’s sponsor. With this award, the University highlights Gimferrer’s career as a poet, essayist and literary critic, as well as the influence he has had on Catalan and Spanish literature in recent decades.
News
|
Institutional
|
Academic
20/03/2025
This Thursday, the Paranymph Hall of the University of Barcelona hosted the honorary doctorate ceremony for Pere Gimferrer. Among the attendees were renowned personalities such as the writer Eduardo Mendoza, the artist Perejaume, the poet Vicenç Altaió and the filmmaker Poldo Pomés. The ceremony was presided over by the rector of the UB, Joan Guàrdia, and Jordi Marrugat, lecturer from the Faculty of Philology and Communication, acted as Gimferrer’s sponsor. With this award, the University highlights Gimferrer’s career as a poet, essayist and literary critic, as well as the influence he has had on Catalan and Spanish literature in recent decades.
The event, which could be followed online on UBtv, began with the entrance of the academic committee into the Paranymph Hall, accompanied by the performance of the Canticorum iubilo by the UB Choir. Rector Guàrdia then officially opened the session and the minutes of Gimferrer’s appointment as doctor honoris causa were read by the Secretary General of the University, Marina Solé.
Afterwards, the dean of the Faculty of Philology and Communication, Javier Velaza, and the sponsor, Jordi Marrugat, went to get the doctoral candidate to accompany him to the chair of the ceremony. Then, the Rector began the investiture ritual, following the academic tradition: the laying of the laureate’s biretta and the presentation of the ring and white gloves, symbols of the mastery and purity of the new status as a member of the UB Doctors’ Senate.
A central figure in contemporary literature
In his laudatio, Professor Jordi Marrugat highlighted the impact of Gimferrer’s work on contemporary literature: he emphasized his contribution to the revaluation of the Catalan and Spanish literary tradition, as well as his constant dialogue with the avant-garde and mass culture. Marrugat described Gimferrer as an inescapable point of reference, who “has shaped the reception and evolution of poetry and essays in recent decades”.
He also highlighted the magnitude of Gimferrer’s influence on generations of writers and researchers: “Gimferrer is today a kind of totem that we all enjoy; that we all read, imitate, criticize, denounce, admire or all at the same time”. He recalled the writer’s fundamental role in the revaluation of avant-garde and forgotten artistic movements, as well as his ability to integrate elite and mass culture: “He was one of the first writers to renew modern high culture from the post-modernist revaluation of mass culture”.
Marrugat also highlighted Gimferrer’s work as a space for dialogue between literary traditions, as well as stressing that “his production as a whole is a more than relevant contribution to the progress of knowledge and cultural creation”. He also highlighted the writer’s commitment to the principles of freedom and equality: “His defence of equality and solidarity is very clear in the vindication of marginalized or oppressed identities that he has made throughout his creative and essayistic work”.
However, Gimferrer’s work of cultural revision did not stop here. Marrugat wanted to highlight another fundamental aspect: his decisive contribution to the recovery of a Catalan tradition different from that of the Catalan Noucentisme, a tradition more linked to darkness than to light, to disorder rather than to harmony. “Order? Diaphanity? Classicism? Perhaps yes; but also tortured research, inner winds, dryness, combats, darkness”, Marrugat quoted, recalling the words of Gimferrer himself. With this view, the author has contributed to reformulating the narrative of Catalan culture, opening it up to sensibilities that had been cornered by the dominant discourse.
Afterwards, the dean of the Faculty of Philology and Communication, Javier Velaza, and the sponsor, Jordi Marrugat, went to get the doctoral candidate to accompany him to the chair of the ceremony. Then, the Rector began the investiture ritual, following the academic tradition: the laying of the laureate’s biretta and the presentation of the ring and white gloves, symbols of the mastery and purity of the new status as a member of the UB Doctors’ Senate.
A central figure in contemporary literature
In his laudatio, Professor Jordi Marrugat highlighted the impact of Gimferrer’s work on contemporary literature: he emphasized his contribution to the revaluation of the Catalan and Spanish literary tradition, as well as his constant dialogue with the avant-garde and mass culture. Marrugat described Gimferrer as an inescapable point of reference, who “has shaped the reception and evolution of poetry and essays in recent decades”.
He also highlighted the magnitude of Gimferrer’s influence on generations of writers and researchers: “Gimferrer is today a kind of totem that we all enjoy; that we all read, imitate, criticize, denounce, admire or all at the same time”. He recalled the writer’s fundamental role in the revaluation of avant-garde and forgotten artistic movements, as well as his ability to integrate elite and mass culture: “He was one of the first writers to renew modern high culture from the post-modernist revaluation of mass culture”.
Marrugat also highlighted Gimferrer’s work as a space for dialogue between literary traditions, as well as stressing that “his production as a whole is a more than relevant contribution to the progress of knowledge and cultural creation”. He also highlighted the writer’s commitment to the principles of freedom and equality: “His defence of equality and solidarity is very clear in the vindication of marginalized or oppressed identities that he has made throughout his creative and essayistic work”.
However, Gimferrer’s work of cultural revision did not stop here. Marrugat wanted to highlight another fundamental aspect: his decisive contribution to the recovery of a Catalan tradition different from that of the Catalan Noucentisme, a tradition more linked to darkness than to light, to disorder rather than to harmony. “Order? Diaphanity? Classicism? Perhaps yes; but also tortured research, inner winds, dryness, combats, darkness”, Marrugat quoted, recalling the words of Gimferrer himself. With this view, the author has contributed to reformulating the narrative of Catalan culture, opening it up to sensibilities that had been cornered by the dominant discourse.
The writer and academic was honoured for his immense contribution to Catalan and Spanish literature at a solemn ceremony in the UB Paranymph Hall.
An investiture speech on the poetic word
In his acceptance speech, Gimferrer reflected on the nature of the poetic word and its relationship with the identity of the poet. He began his speech by posing a fundamental question: “Should a poet talk about poetry, or rather about the poetic word?” To answer this question, he went through different poetic traditions, paying special attention to Gabriel Ferrater, whose poems he analysed, such as “A l’inrevés” and “Cançó idiota”.
In this sense, he emphasized that poetry not only expresses what is said, but also what is silent: “They are convergences, or bifurcations or discrepancies […], but they meet again in another territory, the spring of the poem”. Gimferrer has insisted on the poem’s capacity to transcend time and individual experience: “The poem is, therefore, an unshakable experience: the capture of the poetic self and the confrontation [...] with the depths of what we are”.
Moreover, in one of the most profound reflections of the intervention, Gimferrer remarked that poetry is not only a spoken word, but also a suggested word, a hidden word. In this sense, he quoted Paul Valéry: “Les vrais poètes savent que leurs plus belles pensées sont celles qu’ils n’ont pas exprimées”. It is a statement that fully fits in with his conception of the poem as a space of mystery and revelation at the same time.
At the end of his speech, he evoked his time as a student at the University of Barcelona and recalled how this environment contributed to his intellectual formation: “Here, as in Píndar’s old advice, I learned to become what I was and what I am”.
The ceremony continued with a performance by the UB Choir, before the awarding of the extraordinary master’s degree awards for the 2022-2023 academic year, led by the Vice-Rector for Teaching Policy, Concepció Amat.
The president of the UB’s Board of Trustees, Joan Corominas, also spoke at the ceremony, followed by the closing speech of the rector, Joan Guàrdia, who wanted to highlight Gimferrer’s mastery for the new generations of students and writers: “Gimferrer vindicates the power of the word to exclaim that man is something more than a body, and exemplifies with his life and work the spirit and the university values that today bring us together in this ceremony. This is the mastery that he leaves us”. The session ended with the performance of the hymn Gaudeamus igitur and the academic committee leaving the Paranymph.
With this investiture, Pere Gimferrer joins the Doctors’ Senate of the University of Barcelona, further consolidating his career as one of the most influential intellectuals of our time. In Professor Marrugat’s words, “it is an honour for this University to welcome a figure of the magnitude of Pere Gimferrer to its Doctors’ Senate”.
In his acceptance speech, Gimferrer reflected on the nature of the poetic word and its relationship with the identity of the poet. He began his speech by posing a fundamental question: “Should a poet talk about poetry, or rather about the poetic word?” To answer this question, he went through different poetic traditions, paying special attention to Gabriel Ferrater, whose poems he analysed, such as “A l’inrevés” and “Cançó idiota”.
In this sense, he emphasized that poetry not only expresses what is said, but also what is silent: “They are convergences, or bifurcations or discrepancies […], but they meet again in another territory, the spring of the poem”. Gimferrer has insisted on the poem’s capacity to transcend time and individual experience: “The poem is, therefore, an unshakable experience: the capture of the poetic self and the confrontation [...] with the depths of what we are”.
Moreover, in one of the most profound reflections of the intervention, Gimferrer remarked that poetry is not only a spoken word, but also a suggested word, a hidden word. In this sense, he quoted Paul Valéry: “Les vrais poètes savent que leurs plus belles pensées sont celles qu’ils n’ont pas exprimées”. It is a statement that fully fits in with his conception of the poem as a space of mystery and revelation at the same time.
At the end of his speech, he evoked his time as a student at the University of Barcelona and recalled how this environment contributed to his intellectual formation: “Here, as in Píndar’s old advice, I learned to become what I was and what I am”.
The ceremony continued with a performance by the UB Choir, before the awarding of the extraordinary master’s degree awards for the 2022-2023 academic year, led by the Vice-Rector for Teaching Policy, Concepció Amat.
The president of the UB’s Board of Trustees, Joan Corominas, also spoke at the ceremony, followed by the closing speech of the rector, Joan Guàrdia, who wanted to highlight Gimferrer’s mastery for the new generations of students and writers: “Gimferrer vindicates the power of the word to exclaim that man is something more than a body, and exemplifies with his life and work the spirit and the university values that today bring us together in this ceremony. This is the mastery that he leaves us”. The session ended with the performance of the hymn Gaudeamus igitur and the academic committee leaving the Paranymph.
With this investiture, Pere Gimferrer joins the Doctors’ Senate of the University of Barcelona, further consolidating his career as one of the most influential intellectuals of our time. In Professor Marrugat’s words, “it is an honour for this University to welcome a figure of the magnitude of Pere Gimferrer to its Doctors’ Senate”.
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Acte de conferiment del grau de doctor honoris causa a Pere Gimferrer
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