Chapter 7B.   Literature

     For nearly 1,200 years Spanish men of letters were part of the literary
tradition of the Roman Empire and wrote in Latin. The first literary works in
Spanish were written in the twelfth century, and Spanish literature really got
under way in the thirteenth century. The first well-known work was the Poema
de Mio Cid (Poem of the Cid), ca. 1205. This heroic epic was based on the
adventures of a historical character, El Cid, and tells of his early
adventures, his capture of Valencia from the Moors, and the marriages of his
daughters.

     The earliest lyric poetry in Castilian Spanish that survives is La razon
de amor (The Reason of Love), from the thirteenth century. Most lyric poetry
of the time was written in the Galician-Portuguese dialect.

     Ferdinand III (1199-1252) and his son Alfonso X the Wise (1221-84) were
the first Spanish monarchs to concern themselves with literary matters.
Intellectual pursuits had formerly been the exclusive monopoly of the church.
Alfonso gathered a group of Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew scholars at his court.
He commissioned translations and provided that a code of laws be drawn up and
a history of Spain be recorded. Alfonso's aim was to collect all the current
knowledge in every field and have it set down in Spanish. He supervised the
preparation of more than twenty scholarly works.

     By the fourteenth century there was a vogue for books of tales, such as
the parables of Juan Manuel (1282-1348), and moral philosophy of a didactic
nature. Many of these tales were translated from the Arabic. The greatest work
of that time was the Libro de buen amor (Book of Good Love) by Juan Ruiz (ca.
1283-1351), a ribald book of the adventures of its priest-author that is said
to have written from a jail cell.

     The models for the medieval novels of chivarly that were so favored by
Spanish readers were initially borrowed from France. They dealt with the deeds
of Charlemagne, the legendary King Arthur, classical legends of the Greeks and
Romans, and the Crusades. El caballero Cifar (The Knight Cifar), ca. 1300,
probably the first Spanish novel, tells of the adventures of a knight-errant
and his lady. The popularity of novels of chivalry continued into the
Renaissance and up to about the mid-sixteenth century.

     The fifteenth century continued with didactic works, chronicles, travel
books, and prose romances. About this time many Italian classics, such as
Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, were brought to the country and translated
into Castilian. The introduction of printing into Spain in 1474 led to the
proliferation of literary anthologies.

     Inigo Lopez de Mendoza (1398-1458), the marques de Santillana, was the
greatest fifteenth-century poet and wrote the first Spanish sonnets. He was
a humanist who was conversant with the great works of both French and Italian
arts and letters. One of the most popular Spanish poems, "On the Death of His
Father," was written by Jorge Manrique (1440-79).

     La Celestina (The Celestina), 1499, a novel in dialogue form attributed
to Fernando de Rojas and perhaps several additional authors, was tremendously
popular throughout the sixteenth century. A bawdy love story, it was both
comic and tragic. A forerunner of the earliest theatrical works, it had a
strong influence on the plays of Lope de Vega (1562-1635). La Celestina was
the first work of Spanish literature to be translated into English.

     The Golden Age in Spanish literature may be said to have begun in 1543,
the year when the poetry of Juan Boscan and Garcilaso de la Vega was published
posthumously. Because their poems described a perfect world in which they
idealized nature and man, they complemented the current novels of chivalry and
the pastoral novels that were so favored. This sort of idyllic literature,
however, was condemned by the church at the Council of Trent as counter to the
doctrine of original sin.

     Unlike the contemporary painters, Spanish authors turned away from
realism to mysticism. The mystics desired to know God, to communicate with
him, and ultimately to achieve unity with him. Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-82)
was a nun who wrote of her religious visions in poetry and prose to give
spiritual guidance to others. The events of her life are still studied and
admired, and her example is still followed. Another famous mystic, Saint John
of the Cross (1542-91), wrote lyric poetry that was full of symbolism.

     It was with the picaresque novel, an opposite extreme from the idealized
religious literature, that Spanish literature became most popular. The heroes
of these novels were wanderers who lived by their wits, not by their labor.
The picaros (rogues) were invariably lower class knaves who attached
themselves as servants to a master. The first and best early picaresque novel
was Lazarillo de Tormes (1554) by an unknown author. Its appearance ended the
preference of readers for romances of chivalry. Probably the favorite
picaresque novel was Guzman de Alfarache (in two parts, 1599 and 1604) by
Mateo Aleman. A pessimistic belief in predestination pervades this work. Both
these novels were so widely translated that they appeared even in Latin.

     Don Quixote (in two parts, 1605 and 1615) by Miguel de Cervantes
(1547-1616) is a masterpiece of world literature and considered by many
critics one of the greatest novels ever written. The two characters, Don
Quixote and Sancho Panza, stand for the dual and complementary principles of
fantasy and reason, refinement and vulgarity, idealism and materialism, and
madness and sanity.

     Cervantes was nearly sixty years old when he produced his masterpiece
after having written several works of comparatively poor quality. The
character of Quixote may have been partly autobiographical, as Cervantes
himself had led a peripatetic life that had seen him in battle, captured by
pirates, ransomed, jailed, and perennially in debt. The winds of the
Renaissance reached Cervantes, and he mocked the idyllic novels of chivalry
while perhaps establishing himself as the true idealist affirming the value
of human honor. Quixote does not waver from the cause of good and of valor,
but he does eventually see the virtue of practicality.

     Luis de Gongora (1561-1627), ranked as Spain's greatest poet, wrote in
elaborate and complicated metaphor. Widely read in his time, Gongora later
became a dominant influence on the group of late nineteenth-century authors
known as the Generation of 1898. Modern poets have been intrigued with his
symbolism, and many have adapted it to their work.

     Francisco de Quevedo (1580-1645), an essayist and post, was a master of
characterization who satirized Spanish society and included many human types,
most of them unsavory, in his works. Some of his essays have nightmarish and
horrifying scenes that are reminiscent of Dante or Goya, but he produced some
of the best Spanish sonnets dealing with love and death.

     Lope de Vega, a contemporary and acquaintance of Cervantes, was the
progenitor of Spain's theater. Most of his plays and those of the other
playwrights popular at the time were melodramas involving love, honor, and
revenge. The hero's identity was shrouded by a cape, and he was always
prepared to defend the honor of his lady with his sword. Lope de Vega also
wrote dramatizations of biblical stories and pastoral and historical plays.
His best known play, Fuenteovejuna (Fountain of Youth), 1613, is based on a
Spanish legend about peasants who murder their overlord.

     Lope de Vega himself lived an adventuresome, picaresque life. In between
his several marriages and love affairs he found time to write 1,800 plays
(many written in just twenty-four hours), over 500 of which survive. His work
was generally optimistic and realistic; his action formulas made him a great
crowd pleaser. Golden Age drama in Spain was on a par with that of France and
second only to that of Elizabeth an England. Spaniards attended plays as
enthusiastically as they now watch television and go to motion pictures.

     A host of gifted playwrights followed Lope de Vega. Tirso de Molina's
best known play was about the character Don Juan-El burlador de Sevilla (The
Deceiver of Seville), 1630. Don Juan is the libertine seducer of women. He is
driven only by his lust, and in the end he is driven to damnation. This
character became the hero of works by authors from many countries. A later
Don Juan play written by Jose Zorilla in the 1840s is performed every year in
Spain, and theatergoers like to see several versions to compare the
performances of the actors.

     Pedro Calderon de la Barca (1600-1681) was the best known Spanish
dramatist outside the country. He followed the model of Lope de Vega and wrote
both secular and religious plays, but his works were more intellectual and
stylized than his predecessor's. His cape and sword tragedies developed the
favorite Spanish theme of the conflict between love and honor. The women in
his plays were constantly falling into compromising situations that required
the men to avenge their families' honor and restore their dignity and
self-respect. Calderon's plots were highly involved and reflective of the
narrow values and ideals of the royal court of the time. In his later years
most of his plays were religious allegories and dramas drawn from mythology.
His autos sacramentales (liturgical dramas) were one-act plays that treated
the miracle of transubstantiation allegorically. They were performed as part
of annual Corpus Christi celebrations. Calderon's best known philosophical
play was probably La vida es sueno (Life is a Dream). His death coincided with
the end of the Golden Age.

     For the next century and a half there were only a few good dramas
produced; most theater was a poor imitation of Golden Age drama. The Bourbon
rulers tried to bring the benefits of French culture and intellect and the
neoclassical style to Spain. French intellectualism, however, was not
suited to most Spaniards. Although well-to-do persons readily accepted French
dress, manners, furniture, and food, only audiences drawn from the
intellectual aristocracy appreciated neoclassical theater. Lower and
middle-class audiences rejected the French influence and continued to prefer
Lope de Vega and Calderon. The plays of Ramon de la Cruz (1731-94), who
portrayed the common people of Madrid in comic scenes from their everyday
life, were also popular.

     Part of the effort of the neoclassicists was to condemn autos
sacramentales as sacrilegious and the products of ignorance; in 1765 they were
outlawed. Calderon's plays were eventually forgotten until they were
rediscovered a century later by the German romanticists, who considered his
plays as great as Shakespeare's.

     In the eighteenth century most intellectuals composed poetry, but little
of their verse achieved notice. Most of the prose literature of the time was
philosophical. The country produced a number of writers and scholars, and with
the death in 1833 of Ferdinand VII, who had badly disrupted Spanish cultural
development by promoting French culture, Spain's intellectual life was set
free. The more traditionally Spanish romanticism, with its melodrama, emotion,
and violence, returned in theater and literature. Romantic writers,
disillusioned with the deteriorating political situation and the backwardness
of their country, began to describe contemporary life, questioning Spain's
identity and position in the world. The greatest representative of this trend
was Mariano Jose de Larra (1809-37).

     Much of the literature of the second half of the nineteenth century had
regional themes. This genre was known as costumbrismo (from costumbre,
meaning custom), a kind of literature describing local customs, such as the
life of the simple folk in Andalusia described in Pedro Antonio de Alorcon's
El sombrero de tres picos (The Three-Cornered Hat), 1874. Representatives of
a movement centered in Barcelona wrote novels, drama, and poetry in Catalan.
Meanwhile lyric poetry in Gallegan (the dialect of Galicia) was revived by
Rosalia de Castro (1837-85) and others. A rise in newspaper readership at the
time fostered a new literary form-the short article.

     A major literary movement developed as Spain's colonial empire came to
an end with the Spanish-American War. Referred to as the Generation of 1898,
its writers were preoccupied with Spain's society, its identity as a nation,
and its connection with Europe. Their common themes were their love of the
Spanish landscape and their admiration for El Greco, Gongora, and Larra.

     Most writers of the movement were involved in the Independent Institution
of Education, founded by Professor Francisco Giner de los Rios after his
expulsion from the faculty of the University of Madrid for refusing to take an
oath of loyalty to church and government. It had become apparent to many that
Spain's overriding problem was the lack of an educated elite that could run
the government and civil administration, conduct scientific research, and
contribute to the arts and letters. The causes of this problem were
illiteracy and the lack of educational opportunities for most people. The
institute devoted itself to educating the Spanish people in a spirit of
complete freedom of inquiry and was instrumental in rejuvenating Spain's
faultering literary tradition. It was the only educational institution that
was free of dominance by church or state, and it raised Spanish culture to a
level it had not attained in 300 years.

     One of the most important figures in Spanish philosophy was Miguel de
Unamuno (1864-1936), novelist, essayist, and poet, who wrote novels that
recount anguished struggles with life's meaning. His work contains intense
political criticism. He wrestles with the problems of Spain and Christianity.
Unamuno was an admirer of Don Quixote, holding that faith is superior to
reason and evaluating the scientific and logical view of life as sterile. For
him uncertainty was a source of strength.

     Unamuno wanted to rejuvenate Spain and bring out all that was best and
unique in its heritage. Jose Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) opposed him and felt
the Spain should draw closer to Europe. Ortega y Gasset distrusted the Spanish
character because of its lack of education and spiritual individualism. He
praised science and the qualities of order and organization. When he wrote
Espana invertebrada (Invertebrate Spain) in 1921, criticizing the country's
weaknesses, Ortega y Gasset did not want the book translated for foreign
readers. He regretted Spain's disunity-not just among the regions but among
the social classes and among individuals. His best known work, La rebelion de
las masas (The Revolt of the Masses), published in 1930, is a critique of
modern democratic society.

     It was Jose Martinez Ruiz, whose pseudonym was Azorin after a character
in one of his novels, who coined the phrase Generation of 1898. He was one of
the group of artists and intellectuals that frequented the cafe Els Quatres
Gats in Barcelona early in the twentieth century. Azorin's copious writing is
known for its tranquility and nostalgia. He writes of the everyday monotony of
life in Spain's old towns. In his journalistic reporting, however, Azorin is
said to  have "attacked everything attackable."

     In contrast Azorin's great friend. Pio Baroja, a Basque and one of the
country's most significant novelists, wrote of action and of rebellion and
ugliness. His admirers, who included Ernest Hemingway and H. L. Mencken,
regarded his work as superior to that of the more famous and widely published
Vincente Blasco Ibanez, author of Los cuatro jinetes del Apocalipsis (The Four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse) and Sangre y Arena (Blood and Sand). Ramiro de
Maeztu, along with Azorin and Baroja, formed the trio of friends at the core
of the Generation of 1898.

     The most unusual character of the Generation of 1898 was Galician-born
Ramon del Valle Inclan (1869-1936), who was considered eccentric because of
his dress and physical appearance. His novels are sensual and erotic and
emphasize what he saw as the absurdity of modern life. Ramon Perez de Ayala
(1880-1962) of Asturias was one of the most intellectual and widely traveled
Spanish writers. Like so many of his colleagues, he took his themes from
earlier Spanish literature and history. His picaresque novels portrayed the
Jesuits and used elements of mysticism, romanticism, and melodrama.

     At the beginning of the twentieth century Spanish poets initiated a new
movement known as modernismo (modernism). The dozens of poets who thrived at
that time, along with their great predecessor Gongora, established lyric
poetry as Spain's finest literary achievement. The most influential were Ruben
Dario (1867-1916) and Juan Ramon Jimenez (1881-1958).

     The most renowed Spanish author of modern times is Federico Garcia Lorca
(1899-1936), whose readers laud the imagery, graceful technique, and emotional
intensity of his work. Garcia Lorca's best known works include the love
tragedies Bodas de sangre (Blood Wedding), 1933; Yerma (1934); and La casa de
Bernardo Alba (The House of Bernardo Alba), 1936. His execution by the
Nationalists at the start of the civil war in 1936 was a source of deep
embarrassment to the Franco regime long after. His friend, the poet Antonio
Machado (1875-1939), wrote one of his finest poems to protest Garcia Lorca's
death. Machado died while fleeing from Spain to France. His name later became
a symbol of leftist resistance to the government.

     So many of Spain's writers sympathized with the Republican side and had
to leave the country that literary development largely stopped during the war.
Furthermore the new regime instituted censorship, and the works of Hemingway
and of the poets Garcia Lorca, Manuel Machado (brother of Antonio), Miguel
Hernandez, and many others were banned.

     There have been a number of competent novelists on the literary scene
since the civil war, and some of them have dealt objectively, but not angrily,
with social conditions. Camilo Jose Cela's La colmena (The Hive) describes the
predicament of Madrid's poor in the postwar period. La familia de Pascual
Duarte (The Family of Pascual Duarte) is also concerned with the plight of
workers. Juan Goytisolo writes compassionately about the younger generation
and their rebelliousness. Novelists Miguel Delibes and Jose M. Gironella have
both been awarded literary prizes by the government. Gironella's chronicle of
a family's experiences after the civil war, Los cipreses creen en Dios (The
Cypresses Believe in God), 1953, has been translated into English. One of the
most popular Spanish novelists, Ramon Sender, lives in voluntary exile in the
United States. Many Spanish writers continue to be preoccupied with the
experience of the civil war.

     Relaxed censorship has made it possible for works by communist and other
controversial authors to be sold for the first time. Spanish students admire
Karl Marx, Mao Tse-tung, Sigmund Freud, and others. Hemingway's For Whom the
Bell Tolls and some Russian novels have become available, and some of the
poetry of Hernandez, Machado, and Rafael Alberti has been published. The
majority of books on the best-seller lists are foreign works in translation,
many of which have also been on American best-seller lists. The remainder are
Latin American and Spanish. For 1974 the list included the Memoirs of Salvador
de Madariaga, the eminent scholar who has lived in exile since the civil war.

Drama, Music, and Dance

     Among the earliest forms of Spanish music were the chants that were an
important part of church liturgy. These chants survived after the Moorish
invasion in A.D. 711 and became part of the body of Mozarabic music. The Moors
introduced the lute, the tambourine, a kind of flute, and metal castanets to
Spain. Illustrations from the time of Alfonso X in the thirteenth century show
musicians playing all these instruments as well as two kinds of guitar.

     The centers of musical activity in the Middle Ages were the two
pilgrimage sites at Santiago de Compostela and the monastery at Montserrat,
where performances of sacred music were provided by monks and resident
musicians for the pilgrims. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the
most popular kinds of secular music were the polyphonic ballads known as
romances and the villancicos. Juan del Encina (ca. 1468-1529) was foremost
among the many songwriters of the time. He composed and collected hundreds of
villancicos in Castilian, Portuguese, Basque, French, and Italian that were to
be sung by from one to four voices. They were love songs, both serious and
comic, and were meant to accompany dances. The romances recited historical
events and were accompanied by the guitar.

     Many sixteenth-century musicians also excelled at the organ. Antonio de
Cabezon (1510-66) was a great master of the organ as well as a great composer
for that instrument. A number of the best composers of the time were composing
sacred music and spent much of their time in Rome. Tomas Luis de Victoria (ca.
1548-1611), perhaps the greatest Spanish composer of all time, spent most of
his career in Italy. He composed psalms, hymns, masses, and motets, some of
which used traditional Spanish melodies. His finest piece was the Officium
defunctorum (1605), composed for six voices as a requiem in memory of Empress
Maria, who died in 1603. Musical exchange with Italy continued into the
seventeenth century and involved fine musicians and composers, including
Cristobal Morales, Francisco Guerrero, and Pedro Ordonez. The Italian organist
Domenico Scarlatti inspired later Spanish composers including Antonio Soler
(1729-83), who composed music for the organ and harpsichord.

     Music was an immensely important art form in Spain in the Golden Age
along with the other arts. Theatrical performances often included songs, and
gradually the musical play known as the zarzuela (for the Zarzuela palace in
Madrid) became popular. This was the typically Spanish satirical and comic
operetta in one act that featured singing and dancing with spoken dialogue. It
continued to be popular into the late nineteenth century.

     Both Lope de Vega and Calderon wrote zarzuelas and musical drama. Josede
Nebra (1688-1768) was a prolific composer who produced the first zarzuela
that, rather than having a mythological theme, was sentimental and romantic.
The playwright Ramon de la Cruz and the composer Antonio Rodriguez de Hita
collaborated on a zarzuela about a contemporary love story.

     Whereas the zarzuela was the favorite of general audiences, Italian opera
was the favorite of the aristocratic classes and the court, and Italian
performers were drawn to Spain. Between the acts of operas a kind of musical
comedy known as the tonadilla was often performed. These were short and
combined action and singing. They were usually social satires with characters
portraying the ordinary people of Madrid. Themes from the tonadillas inspired
other European composers to use Spanish themes in their music, as Georges
Bizet did in the popular opera Carmen.

     At about the end of the eighteenth century Spanish composers were intent
on reviving a national Spanish music. Like the national architecture, the
national music was a hybrid. It combined Greek mythological themes from
zarzuelas, Italian-style arias, and traditional villancicos. Felipe Pedrell
(1841-1922) was most influential in inspiring twentieth-century composers,
and it was at his insistence that they used traditional melodies and themes.

     It was in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that Spanish
music actually reached its greatest heights. The most flamboyant musician was
Isaac Manuel Francisco Albeniz (1860-1909), who from the age of eight to
twenty traveled around Spain, to Argentina, Cuba, New York, and England, and
around Europe earning his living by giving piano recitals. His many piano
compositions were inspired by the folk music of Andalusia. He is best known
for his suite Iberia. Another composer, Enrique Granados (1867-1916), an
admirer of Goya, composed a series for the piano entitled Goyescas. Granados'
music is sentimental and takes its inspiration either from the gay and
charming aspects of life in Madrid or from the folklore of Andalusia.

     Although they left their region, both Albeniz and Granados were Catalans.
Late nineteenth-century Catalonia was rich in distinguished composers and
musicians. The Catalan Pablo Casals (1876-1973), the cellist, became one of
the most famous twentieth-century Spaniards. He was active in popularizing
classical music among Spain's working classes. In 1939 Casals left Spain and
refused to return because of his opposition to the regime. He did, however,
perform concerts in France near the Spanish border so that Spaniards could
attend.

     Not all of Spain's great musicians were Catalans. Pablo de Sarasate, a
violin virtuoso, came from Navarre. Jose Maria Usandizaga, who wrote operas
and orchestrations to be accompanied by song, was a Basque. The greatest
modern Spanish composer, Manuel de Falla (1876-1946), came from Andalusia.
Although he spent seven years in France, where he associated with the French
composers Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, and Paul Dukas, Falla was devoted to
Spanish folk music. His ballet The Three-Cornered Hat, based on Alorcon's
novel and produced by Sergei Diaghilev with a set designed by Picasso, was a
milestone in international art. Others of Falla's compositions were original
and imaginative in form. They ranged from piano orchestrations to marionette
operas. Falla blended ancient and modern musical forms. After the civil war he
lived in self-imposed exile until his death.

     Almost all of the pre-civil war Spanish composers left the country. The
two Halffter brothers, Ernesto and Rodolfo, of German extraction, had been
dominant in Spain's musical scene. They were part of a group of musicians who
resided in Madrid in the 1930s, but they left to live in Portugal and Mexico,
and most of their colleagues also dispersed into exile.

     Musicians of the post-civil war generation include Luis de Pablo, who
had studied music in Germany and has had his works performed in Paris; Odon
Alonso, who conducts the Madrid Philharmonic Orchestra; Enrique Garcia
Asensio, who conducts the Spanish Radio and Television Orchestra; Tomas Marco,
who has studied the violin and composition in several European countries and
has written books on music; and Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos (of German
parentage) who has conducted the Spanish National Orchestra and other
orchestras around the world.

     Spanish folk music has been called the richest in the world because so
much of it has been preserved and because it has so much regional variety.
Spain's folklore, unlike that of other European countries, has been relatively
isolated from the rest of Europe but influenced by the Middle East and North
Africa as Byzantine, Gypsy, and Hebrew influences combined with Moorish and
Iberian traditions.

     In Andalusia, which has one of the richest heritages of folk music, the
typical songs are laments that dramatically express sorrow. Gaiety in music is
expressed in flamenco dancing and singing. The term flamenco (meaning Flemish,
which was the nationality mistakenly attributed to the Gypsies) is applied to
many forms of songs and fandangos. The dances are performed by one or two
people continuously tapping their feet. In true flamenco dancing castanets are
not used. One form of dancing that is part of the flamenco tradition was
brought to the New World as the tango.

     In Extremadura the typical folk music is played on a sort of flute
accompanied by a small drum. The songs of Castile resemble the villancicos of
the Middle Ages. Some are nocturnal serenades that lovers sing to each other.
In the province of Salamanca dancing is accompanied by rhythms played on the
tambourine and castanets. Galicia has preserved a distinctive folk music style
that uses the Gallegan dialect, and the characteristic songs are sung to the
accompaniment of a kind of bagpipe. Asturias features a song that is sung
while dancing in a circle. Basque folk music shares characteristics with that
of France. In Basque dances the males take the leading roles.

     Spanish dances are classical, such as the bolero and the jota, flamenco,
or communal. The jota is the dance of Aragon. Accompanied by guitars of
several sizes, the jota is a fast and exhausting dance performed by couples
using castanets. The sardana is the dance of Catalonia. Unlike the jota it is
a communal dance for groups of men and women who hold hands in a circle and
perform simple, slow-paced steps. The bolero is danced by one or two persons
alternately displaying their skillful steps. The dance begins with a paseo, a
promenade that introduces the dance. Second is the display of intricate steps
and leaps, and the third part is a series of striking poses. The dances called
sevillanas (of Seville) include several steps that were borrowed by classical
ballet.

Scholarship and Scientific Research

     Before the civil war significant achievements in the social and natural
sciences were being made along with the rejuvenation in literature and the
arts. The historian Rafael Altamira published the History of Spanish
Civilization (1930); the Nobel Prize winner Santiago Ramon y Cajal was doing
research in the biological sciences; and Ramon Menendez Pidal, a philologist,
linguist, and historian, was the mentor of a whole generation of scholars.
Madariaga, who published his Spain: A Modern History in 1930, also excelled as
an engineer, journalist, professor, diplomat, essayist, and historian. Later,
in exile, he held posts at Princeton and Oxford.

     Immediately after the civil war many of Spain's foremost intellectuals
fled the country. These included scientists, professors, writers, and
publishers among a host of others who chose not to remain under the new
regime. For those who stayed life was difficult, particularly for those in
intellectual pursuits. The minister of information in the 1950s, Gabriel Arias
Salgado, scrutinized all literature of the social sciences and humanities for
antigovernment bias. Although the Superior Council of Scientific Research was
set up in 1939 to sponsor research in the natural and physical sciences,
insufficient funds were earmarked for the institution, and little progress
was made.

     In the 1960s and 1970s research has been reemphasized, and Spanish
scientists have been working in many fields. Contributing to scientific
research are universities, academies, professional societies, the institutes
of the Higher Council for Scientific Research, the Institute of Hispanic
Culture, libraries, archives, and some private foundations. The United States
Atomic Energy Commission has a contract with Spain's Institute of Nuclear
Energy. Other important projects concern nuclear energy for power plants,
oceanography and fishing, metallurgy, environmental pollution, agricultural
research to develop better animal fodder and to eliminate cattle diseases,
veterinary research, archaeology, and opthalmology. Graduates in scientific
and technical fields have no difficulty in finding employment. They are
carefully selected for their ability and motivation in order to complete
their course of study. Most Spanish university students still prefer to study
the fine arts, law, and medicine.





Copyright 1991 Bureau Development, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

William Evans-Smith, Director Foreign Area Studies, Spain: Chapter 7B. Literature., Countries of the World, 01-01-1991.

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