Gullón, Ricardo, 1908-

Spanish scholar, author, teacher, critic.

From the description of Ricardo Gullón papers, 1960-1985. (Denver Public Library). WorldCat record id: 23736120

From the guide to the Ricardo Gullón papers (MS 289), 1960-1985, (University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries. Special Collections Dept.)

Ricardo Gullón, literary biographer and critic, art critic, professor of Spanish literature, public prosecutor, and highly prolific writer, was born in Astorga, Spain, in 1908. He was educated at the Instituto de León, receiving a bachelor’s degree in 1923, and at the University of Madrid, earning a law degree in 1929. While a student, he produced a weekly paper, La Saeta (1925), and a literary review, Humo (1928), with his Astorga friends Leopoldo Panero and Luís Alonso Luengo. In 1935, he published the novel Fin de semana and was a literary critic for Diario de Madrid and Heraldo de Madrid. His friendships with Manuel Ildefonso Gil, Luís Rosales, and Juan Ramón Jiménez date from his time in Madrid.

Gullón began his legal career as a public prosecutor in 1933, serving as a member of the Spanish judiciary through 1958 and as attorney general of Santander, Spain, from 1956 to 1957. He was never far removed from literature and the arts, especially Hispanic life and culture, and from 1949 on he combined teaching literature with legal work. In 1953, Francisco Ayala and Juan Ramón Jiménez invited him to Puerto Rico to lecture and write on modernism at the University of Puerto Rico as a visiting Law School professor. By this time Gullón had established his reputation as a literary and art critic, having published books on Pereda (1943), Jorge Guillén (1949), Enrique Gil y Carrasco (1951), and Goya and modern art (1952). In 1958, he became a permanent member of the Humanities faculty at the University of Puerto Rico, establishing the Sala Zenobia y Juan Ramón Jiménez.

After two years of teaching in Puerto Rico, Gullón accepted a visiting professorship at the University of Texas at Austin in 1960, becoming a professor in 1961 and an Ashbel Smith Professor from 1972 to 1976. Strengthening his association with other Spanish scholars across the United States during this period, Gullón was visiting professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, Stanford University, New York University, Columbia University, the University of Colorado, and the University of Iowa, among others. He edited anthologies and critical editions of Pérez Galdós, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Miguel de Unamuno, and Rubén Darío and published articles in Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, Insula, Hispanic Review, and Mundo Nuevo. His deep interest in Spanish dramatist Ramón del Valle-Inclán is shown in his work Vallé Inclán Centennial Studies (1968).

Gullón became a professor at the University of Chicago in 1976, where he continued as a supporter of Hispanism and was instrumental in the organization of an International Symposium dedicated to Huidobro and the avant-garde. In 1987, he was visiting professor at the University of California, Davis, where a special colloquium was held to honor him on his formal retirement from teaching in 1988. He was accepted as a member of the Real Academia Española in 1990, an occasion where he read his last publication, titled Juan Ramón Jiménez: año de gracia de 1903. Gullón died on February 11, 1991. He was 82.

From the guide to the Ricardo Gullón Papers, 1958-1983 (bulk 1960-1973), (The University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center)