An alternative ending to Jacint Verdaguer’s “Los dos campanars”

Handwritten drafts of Jacint Verdaguer’s Canigó reveal much about the author’s writing process. These autographs include both first versions of verses and passages from the poem and drafts that were finally rejected. Multiple drafts include mentions of a latent volcano beneath the Canigó massif that were not included in the 1886 printed edition. The last sheet of ms. 375/2, housed at the Biblioteca de Catalunya, includes drafts of two of the three final stanzas of the poem’s epilogue, “Los dos campanars”, and a series of verses that constitute two alternative stanzas, with a different ending to the epilogue – and therefore to Canigó as a whole – in which the volcano plays a prominent role. This alternative ending had gone unnoticed until now.