An approach to Joan Maragall's trilogy on the Setmana Tràgica from the point of view of essay

On the occasion of the Setmana Tràgica, Joan Maragall wrote three articles in which he expressed a personal point of view on the events, very critical of the ruling classes. For this reason, one of the articles was censored and another was modified. Over the years, the triptych has become one of Maragall's best-known works and one of the most important examples of his prose. Here we propose to link the three articles to the tradition of the essay, through the specific analysis of five parameters: the use of prose (differentiated from poetry, philosophy and journalism), the autobiographical pact (different of poetic fiction), the social function and the role of the intellectual (linked, above all, to the affair of Ferrer i Guàrdia), the predominance of argumentation (as the main textual typology) and the paratextual construction (both of original context as of later editions). This will allow us to outline lines of study already started by other researchers and suggest new possibilities of analysis, especially on textual analysis, such as argumentative structures or rhetorical strategies.