Miquel Dolç i Dolç (Santa Maria del Camí, Mallorca, 1912 - Madrid, 1994) was a poet, critic, translator and Latin scholar.

Born into a farming family, he completed his Ecclesiastical Studies in Rome and Sicily and, after his return to Mallorca, he completed his secondary schooling at the Palma High School. In 1942 he obtained a degree in Philology in Barcelona and was subsequently awarded a doctorate in Madrid, for which he wrote a thesis titled Hispania y Marcial (Hispania and Martial, 1953). The poetic works of Miquel Dolç begin with El somni encetat (Dream Begun, 1943) and Ofrena de sonets (Offering of Sonnets, 1946). The works Elegies de guerra (War Elegies, 1948), Petites elegies (Small Elegies, 1958), Flama (Flame, 1962) and Imago mundi (1972) make up the greater part of his poetic oeuvre. L'ombra que s'allarga (The Lengthening Shadow, 1984) is a collection of poems on his hometown, Santa Maria del Camí. His final collection of poems was Sàtires i epigrames (Satires and Epigrams, 1994).

As a literary critic he published books like El color en la poesia de Costa i Llobera (Colour in the Poetry of Costa i Llobera, 1953), Virgili i nosaltres (Virgil and Us, 1958), Retorno a la Roma clásica (Return to Classical Rome, 1972), Intent d'avaluació (Attempt at Evaluation,1983), and Estudis de crítica literària: de Ramon Llull a Bartomeu Rosselló-Pòrcel (Studies in Literary Criticism: From Ramon Llull to Bartomeu Rosselló-Pòrcel, 1994). His work as a translator of the Latin classics into Catalan was very important and included his versions of works by Virgil and Ovid, Tacitus' Annals, the Satires of Persius, and the Epigrams of Martial. In 1987, he was awarded the Ministry of Culture's Translation Prize for his rendering of Lucretius' On the Nature of Things, while he also received the Serra d'Or Critics' Prose Translation Prize in 1990 for his Catalan version of Saint Augustine's Confessions. He was awarded the Creu de Sant Jordi (Saint George Cross) of the Generalitat (Government) of Catalonia in 1983.

Miquel Dolç was a teacher at the Maioricensis Schola Lullistica (1951), a member of the board of governors of the Bernat Metge Foundation (1960), and a correspondent member of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (Institute of Catalan Studies – 1961) and of the Acadèmia de Bones Lletres (Academy of Belles Lletres) of Barcelona (1970).



Web page: Toni Terrades for AELC.
Documentation: Toni Terrades.
Photographs: © Obra Cultural Balear and L'ombra que s'allarga. Santa Maria del Camí: Edicions de l'Ajuntament, 1984.
Translation: Julie Wark.