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Alfonso Reyes, the great humanist and man of letters of contemporary Spanish America, began his literary career just before the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. He spearheaded the radical shift in Mexico's cultural and philosophical orientation as a leading member of the famous'Athenaeum Generation.'The crucial years of his literary formation, however, were those he spent in Spain (1914-1924). He arrived in Madrid unknown and unsure of his future. When he left, he had achieved both professional maturity and wide acclaim as a writer. This book has, as its basis, the remarkable correspondence between Reyes and some of the leading spirits of the Spanish intellectual world, covering not only his years in Spain but also later exchanges of letters. Although Reyes always made it clear that he was a Mexican and a Spanish American, he became a full-fledged member of the closed aristocracy of Spanish literature. It was the most brilliant period in Spain's cultural history since the Golden Age, and it is richly represented here by Reyes'association with five of its most important figures: Miguel de Unamuno and Ramón del Valle-Inclán were of the great'Generation of 98'; among the younger writers were José Ortega y Gasset, essayist and philosopher; the Nobel poet Juan Ramón Jiménez; and Ramón Gómez de la Serna, a precursor of surrealism. Alfonso Reyes maintained lifelong friendships with these men, and their exchanges of letters are of a dual significance. They reveal how the years in Spain allowed Reyes to pursue his vocation independently, thereby prompting him to seek universal values. Coincidentally, they provide a unique glimpse into the inner world of those friends—and their dreams of a new Spain.

The primary aim of the Dictionary of Spanish Literature is to serve as a convenient reference work for American students of Spanish and Spanish American literature. The treatment is concise, factual and objective, the endeavor being to present a maximum of data with a modicum of critical commentary, and to make the latter representative rather than subjective.Within the given limits, the coverage includes the great anonymous masterpieces, the major and minor novelists, poets, dramatists, essayists and literary critics, both of Spain and of Spanish America. Also included are eminent Spanish literary scholars as well as outstanding Hispanists of other countries, but especially those of the United States. Wherever pertinent, the interrelationships of Spanish literature with that of other countries are treated in appropriate detail. The entire dictionary is thoroughly cross-referenced with respect to titles of representative works, famous literary characters and pseudonyms of authors.

The twelve essays in this fiorilegio of the work of Otis H. Green afford a representative view of the thought and scholarship of one of the world's foremost Hispanists. In each of them is developed some important facet of the intellectual milieu of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, reflecting Otis Green's life-long and wide-ranging quest for evidence that would broaden our understanding of those complex periods and correct the misapprehensions which have gathered about them. Included are important sections of his great work, Spain and the Western Tradition and essays from journals now difficult to obtain or out of print. This book provides a valuable introduction to Spanish thought and to the work of a scholar who has done much to elucidate it.