Germán Gullón
Encyclopedia
Career
Gullón's career as a university professor began after he obtained a bachelor degree at the University of SalamancaUniversity of Salamanca
The University of Salamanca is a Spanish higher education institution, located in the town of Salamanca, west of Madrid. It was founded in 1134 and given the Royal charter of foundation by King Alfonso IX in 1218. It is the oldest founded university in Spain and the third oldest European...
(1969), where he wrote his M.A. Thesis with Fernando Lázaro Carreter
Fernando Lázaro Carreter
Fernando Lázaro Carreter was a Spanish linguist, journalist and literary critic who worked to improve the way the Spanish language is spoken and written, who penned the hugely popular 1997 book El Dardo en la Palabra , a collection of articles he wrote on linguistic gaffes in the media...
and studied with Ricardo Senabre and José Luis Pensado. After obtaining a PhD at the University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
(1970–1973), he was appointed Assistant Professor of Spanish at University of Pennsylvania, where he taught from 1973 to 1988. Under the chairmanship of Russell P. Sebold, and the presence of scholars like Samuel Armistead, Gonzalo Sobejano and Paul M. Lloyd, the Penn Spanish Department rose to prominence in the U.S. and became known for its faculty's ability to combine research based on philological knowledge with theoretical criticism.
At Penn Gullón obtained a Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, appointment as Professor of Spanish Literature, and worked for more than fifteen years as associate editor of the Hispanic Review. Later he moved on to the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
(Davis), where he was chairman of the Department of Spanish and Classics and became a colleague of such distinguished Hispanists as Samuel Armistead and Antonio Sánchez Romeralo. He has also been Visiting Professor at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Literary Theory), Middlebury College (Summer, 1990) and the University Carlos III of Madrid (2000–2001).
Among the honours obtained by Gullón we count the Honorary MA of the University of Pennsylvia, different scholarships, the American Philosophical Society and the Guggenheim. This last one allowed him to spend a year in Spain researching what soon would be one of his most celebrated books, La novela moderna en España. He has also been the President of the International Association of Galdosistas and the Director of the Cervantes Institute in Utrecht
Utrecht (city)
Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features...
(1997–1998).
Gullón has also been member of the jury of the Premio Nadal
Premio Nadal
Premio Nadal is a Spanish literary prize awarded annually by the publishing house Ediciones Destino, part of Planeta. It has been awarded every year on January 6 since 1944...
(2000–2009) and of the Premio Ciudad de Valladolid. He is a critic for El Cultural, where he is a reviewer of British novels, European contemporary and of critical texts. Gullón himself directs the Virtual Cervantes Library portal of the Contemporary Spanish Novel(662.000 visits in 05-2007).
Literary Critic
The literary criticism of Germán Gullón offers three different facets: the sholarly one, the author of literary studies, the text editor of the Spanish Literature of centuries XIX, XX and XXI, and the one as literary critic. As author of literary studies emphasizes his works about the 19th century and about the modernism (End of century and Generation of '98Generation of '98
The Generation of '98 was a group of novelists, poets, essayists, and philosophers active in Spain at the time of the Spanish-American War ....
). His contribution has been very important, within the line of formalistic works started by Ricardo Gullón, Fernando Lázaro Carreter
Fernando Lázaro Carreter
Fernando Lázaro Carreter was a Spanish linguist, journalist and literary critic who worked to improve the way the Spanish language is spoken and written, who penned the hugely popular 1997 book El Dardo en la Palabra , a collection of articles he wrote on linguistic gaffes in the media...
, Francisco Rico and Darío Villanueva Prieto, because it is the one who has insisted on the importance of the way in which the works are narrated and his influence in the configuracion of the meaning. Their editions have also supposed a landmark in the edition of classic Spanish moderns, for taking an original point of vieuw. Instead of to assume since one becomes in the classic text editing that the text is one, that belongs exclusively to the author of the same, Gullón presents/displays texts published in its context, and explains how the meaning of the same goes is changing with time, that is to say, considers to the literary text like alive. Also amplify the concept of authorism, that does not reduce to the author properly, but to whatever contributes to the creation of the text, like the publisher, to the collection in which it appears, etc. Finally as literary critic it appears in El Cultural of El Mundo
El Mundo (Spain)
El Mundo is the second largest printed and the largest digital daily newspaper in Spain and one of the newspapers of record in that country, with a daily circulation topping 300,000 readers for the printed edition and 24 million unique web visitors per month for the...
. His reviews always demonstrate a mixture of information, opinion and literary knowledge. His last two books, Los mercaderes en el templo de la literatura and Una Venus mutilada: La crítica literaria en la España actual, constitutes the most solid invitation to the debate done by a critic in the last decade in Spain.
Critical studies
- (Co-editor) Teoría de la novela, Madrid, Taurus, 1974.
- (Co-editor) Surrealismo/Surrealismos; Latinoamérica y España, Filadelfia, University of Pennsylvania, 1977.
- El narrador en la novela del siglo XIX, Madrid, Taurus, 1976.
- La novela como acto imaginativo, Madrid, Taurus, 1983.
- La novela del XIX: Estudio sobre su evolución formal, Amsterdam, Rodopi,1990
- La novela moderna en España (1885–1902): Los albores de la modernidad, Madrid, Taurus, 1992.
- La novela en la libertad: Introducción a la lectura cultural de la narrativa, Zaragoza, Tropelías, Universidad de Zaragoza, 1999.
- El jardín interior de la burguesía. La novela moderna en España (1885–1902, Madrid, Biblioteca Nueva, 2003.
- Los mercaderes en el templo de la literatura, Madrid, Caballo de Troya, 2004.
- La modernidad silenciada: La cultura española en torno a 1900, Madrid, Biblioteca Nueva, 2006.
- Una Venus mutilada. La crítica literaria en la España actual, Madrid, Biblioteca Nueva, 2008.
- El sexto sentido. La lectura en la era digital, Vigo, Academia del Hispanismo, 2010.
Editions
- Sotileza, por José María Pereda, Madrid, Espasa Calpe,1999; 2a edición 2007.
- Niebla, por Miguel de Unamuno, Madrid, Espasa Calpe, 2006.
- Cándida otra vez, por Marina Mayoral, Madrid Castalia,1992.
- Primera memoria, por Ana María Matute, Barcelona, Destino, 1996.
- Historias del Kronen, por José Ángel Mañas, Barcelona, Destino, 1998; 6a edición, 2004.
- Edad de oro, por Juan Ramón Jiménez. Introducción, edición y notas de G. Gullón y Heilette van Ree, Obra poética, vol. II: Obra en prosa, Madrid, Espasa Calpe, 2005.
- MiauMiauMiau is a realistic novel by Spanish writer Benito Pérez Galdós, released in 1888. It tells a story about a middle-low class family of Madrid in the 19th century. The main character is Ramón Villaamil, an ex-employée from the Ministry of Economy and Finance...
, por Benito Pérez Galdós, Madrid, Espasa Calpe, 1999; 9a edición, 2007. - La desheredada, por Benito Pérez Galdós, Madrid, Cátedra,2000; 4a edición 2008.
- Doña Perfecta, por Benito Pérez Galdós, Madrid, Espasa Calpe, 2003; 8a edición, 2007
- Tristana, por Benito Pérez Galdós, Madrid, Espasa Calpe, 2006, 2a edición 2008.
- Fortunata y Jacinta[Antología de estudios críticos], Madrid, Taurus, 1986.
- El alquimista impaciente, por Lorenzo Silva, Madrid, Espasa Calpe, 2008.
- El 19 de marzo y el 2 de mayo, por Benito Pérez Galdós, Madrid, Biblioteca Nueva, 2008.
- Fortunata y Jacinta, por Benito Pérez Galdós, Madrid, Espasa Calpe, 2008.
- Cádiz, por Benito Pérez Galdós, Madrid, Espasa Calpe, 2011.
Novels and Short stories
- Adiós, Helena de Troya, Barcelona, Destino, 1997
- Azulete, Barcelona, Destino, 2000
- Querida hija, Barcelona, Destino, 1999; Planeta D'Agostini, 2001
Other publications
- Prologos a Benito Pérez Galdós Misericordia(Círculo de Lectores);Miguel Herráez La estrategia de la postmodernidad en Eduardo Mendoza(Barcelona, Ronsel, 1998); Ángel Ganivet,Los trabajos ddel infatigable creador Pío Cid (Granada, Diputación de Granada, 2000);(Estudio Preliminar) Ricardo Gullón, El destello (Santander, Universidad de Cantabria, 2003;