Joan Alcover i Maspons (Catalan pronunciation: [ʒuˈan əlkuˈve]; 1854 – 1926) was a Spanish Balearic writer, poet, essayist and politician.

Simultaneously, he was a militant of the liberal party of his friend Antoni Maura when he commenced a political career that would culminate in his appointment as a representative of the 'Corts' [Courts] (1893).

This is poetry inspired by the Romantic, which imitates other poets', such as Bécquer and Campoamor, having intense expression of the poetical voice, yet straining to avoid rhetorical excesses and pomposity.

In 1887, just six years after he had wed, Alcover lost his wife, Rosa Pujol Guarch, with whom he had had three children, Pere, Teresa and Gaietà.

This sequence of misfortunes drove him to a deep nervous breakdown, which would lead him to heighten his intellectual research, deriving of more natural and sincere forms of expression.

All this moved him to broaden his literary horizons, to join a wider movement and to make ties, mainly due to his friendship with Santiago Rusiñol and Josep Carner, with the Principalities’ cultural activity.

In this collection of unrelated poems, we see a lyrical voice split into different people, describing many landscapes which are typically Majorcan, in order to express their anemic state, feelings and emotions, as well as the poet's own artistic conception.

Alcover did this by using forms and ideas taken from popular imaginary, like those we find in the poem ‘Balanguera’, which would be adapted to music by Amadeu Vives and become Majorca's present-day hymn.