Margalida Capellà Soler, Homer's Mallorcan daughter
I still don't know what the future holds after the death of Margalida Capellà Soler. An entire generation of Latin and Greek teachers owes her a great debt for her work in popularizing these subjects. Born in Campanet in 1965, as a teenager Margalida was fascinated by what her Greek teacher, Coloma Blanes y Blanes, taught her at the Berenguer de Anoia high school in Inca. Even then, she knew that after finishing her pre-university studies, she would go to Barcelona to study Classical Philology. She didn't succumb to the siren call of her science teachers who, upon recognizing her intellectual versatility, insisted she pursue a degree "with better job prospects."
Margalida was right to follow her calling. After graduating from the University of Barcelona, she stayed to live in the Catalan capital, where she passed the competitive examinations for a professorship in secondary school Greek. For years she worked at the Institut Premià de Mar. She was also an associate professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, where she joined the Argón Team for Classical Languages and Culture. She was also a member of the board of the Catalan Society for Classical Studies and of groups of classical teachers such as Chiron and Culturaclasica.com. In addition, Margalida was a teacher trainer and the author of a large number of teaching materials and literary adaptations. She promoted games of Greco-Latin etymologies and translations, especially of female authors such as...Ancient Greek poetsand 'Corinna of Tanagra. Testimonies and fragments'.
Following in the footsteps of the 19th-century modernists, Margalida championed the Catalan language and culture as great repositories of the Western classical tradition. Her motto was "to cultivate a love for our language through the study of Latin and Greek." It was no easy task. The collective consciousness was still steeped in the refrain of "rosa, rosae," with which, for years, many teachers—primarily recycled former seminarians—had tormented an entire generation of students, who by their third year of high school had already given up on studying Greek, the highest level of classical learning. As former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously said: "Naturally, I am in favor of young people learning English. I would make them all learn English; and then, I would let the intelligent ones learn Latin as an honor, and Greek as a pleasure."
Margalida excelled at this pursuit so much that she could well be considered Homer's Mallorcan daughter. She wanted to bring to life so-called dead languages. And she did so by leaving the ivory tower of the academic world, always so protective of its knowledge. She threw herself into it wholeheartedly. She was aware that the study of the classical world could not be limited to learning grammar, which often yielded sterile results. To translate and syntactically analyze the tedious fragments of the 'Gallic Wars,' one first had to discuss the figure of Julius Caesar, his historical context, classical tradition, etymology, the secret life of words, the history of verbs like 'to remember,' which initially meant 'to return.' The same had to be done with Greek, the other great cultural pillar of Europe, which has given us so many myths, such as Plato's allegory of the cave, the embryo of the current age of manipulation.
From 2000 onwards, Margalida was a visionary in recognizing the potential of the internet to modernize the teaching of classical languages. She encouraged her students with a blog called 'El hilo de las clásicas' (The Thread of Classics). It was a pioneering tool that championed the enduring relevance of classical thought in all areas of knowledge and daily life. In 2008, it was awarded one of the Blocs Catalunya prizes. That experience inspired students to create their own blogs with equally engaging titles such as 'El universo clásico de nuestras palabras' (The Classical Universe of Our Words), 'El cielo de los mitos' (The Sky of Myths), 'Literatura griega en escena' (Greek Literature on Stage), and 'Metamorfoseados' (Metamorphosed).
As a teacher, all these resources were like a revelation to me, changing the way I teach. I was amused to discover that their creator was from Mallorca. I contacted her immediately. The messages we exchanged online conveyed so much humanity and generosity. Margalida was always willing to help me with anything. In 2021, we met in person when I asked her to accompany me to Barcelona to present my first book, which owed so much to her,Mythology for Laypeople: A Manual for Understanding the Classical Tradition of the WestI was captivated by the kindness that emanated from her bright and smiling face.
Margalida was a wise person who made you feel good. She shunned cultural elitism, instead sharing her boundless curiosity about the world through her mastery of the classics. For me, she perfectly embodied the figure of the humanist, someone who uses culture not to boast and feed their ego, but to humbly share in the beauty and mystery of life. Margalida has been my guiding light. With her, the famous quote Isaac Newton uttered in the 17th century takes on new meaning: "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Now, one of those giants is her daughter, the young filmmaker Valèria Cuní, who has just premiered the short film 'Summer Cemetery, set in tourist Mallorca, with Campanet as the epicenter.
Antoni Janer Torrens, journalist and high school teacher of Latin and Greek