Born: Oviedo, Asturias, Spain, 9 August 1880. Education: Educated at the Jesuit Colegio de San Zoil, Camion de los Condes, 1888-90; Jesuit Colegio de la Inmaculada, Gijon, 1890-94; University of Oviedo, Faculty of Law, 1899-1902, degree in law. Family: Married Mabel Rick in 1913; two sons. Career: Moved to Madrid, 1902; contributor to Helios, 1903-04; correspondent for the Madrid El Impartial in London, 1907; travelled to Germany, 1912, United States, 1913; war correspondent for the Buenos Aires La Prensa, 1916; in United States, writing articles for Madrid newspapers, 1919-20; co-founder, with Jose Ortega y Gasset and Gregorio Maranon, Association for the Defence of the Republic, 1931; Spanish ambassador in London, 1931-36: resigned; lived in Biarritz and Paris, 1936-39, and returned to Spain at the end of the Civil War, 1939; lectured in South America and settled in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1940-54: earned living as lecturer and journalist, and was later appointed to the staff of the Spanish Embassy; visited France and Spain, 1949, and returned to Spain, 1954; regular contributor, ABC, Madrid, 1954-62. Awards: Mariano de Cavia prize (for journalism), 1922; National literature prize, 1926; Spanish Society of New York medal (co-winner); Juan March prize, 1960. Honorary doctorate: University of London, 1936. Member: Member-elect, Royal Spanish Academy, 1928. Died: 5 August 1962.
Publications
Collection
Obras completas, edited by Jose Garcia Mercadal. 4 vols., 1964-69.
Fiction
Tinieblas en las cumbres. 1907; edited by Andres Amoros, 1971.
Sonreia. 1909.
A.M.D.G.. 1910; edited by Andres Amoros, 1983.
La pata de la raposa. 1912; edited by Andres Amoros, 1970; as The Fox’s Paw, translated by Thomas Walsh, 1924.
La arana (stories). 1913.
Troteras y danzaderas. 1913; edited by Andres Amoros, 1972.
Prometeo; Luz de domingo; La caida de los Limones (poetic novellas). 1916; as Prometheus; The Fall of the House of Limon; Sunday Sunlight, translated by Alice P. Hubbard and Grace Hazard Conkling, 1920.
Belarmino y Apolonio. 1921; edited by Andres Amoros, 1976; as Belarmino and Apolonio, translated by Murray Baumgarten and Gabriel Berns, 1971.
Luna de miel, luna de hiel; Los trabajos de Urbano y Simona. 2 vols., 1923; edited by Andres Amoros, 1969; as Bitter Honeymoon, translated by Barry Eisenberg, 1972; as Honeymoon, Bittermoon, translated by Eisenberg, 1990.
El ombligo del mundo (poetic novellas). 1924.
Bajo el signo de Artemisa (novellas). 1924.
Tigre Juan; El curandero de su honra. 2 vols., 1926; edited by Andres Amoros, 1980; as Tiger Juan, translated by Walter Starkie, 1933.
Justicia. 1928.
El Raposin (stories). 1962.
Verse
Lapaz del sendero. 1903.
El sendero ennumerable. With La paz del sendero, 1916.
El sendero andante: Momentos; Modos; Ditirambos; Doctrinal de vida y naturaleza. 1921.
Ramoneo. 1935.
Poesias completas. 1944 (3rd edition).
Plays
Sentimental Club. 1909; as La revolution sentimental, in Obras completas, 2, 1965.
Other
Hermann, encadenado (war essays). 1917.
Las mascaras (theatre criticism). 2 vols., 1917-19.
Politica y toros (essays). 1918.
Exodo (travel writing). 1923.
Obras completas. 19 vols., 1923-28.
El libro de Ruth: Ensayos en vivo. 1928.
Selections from Perez de Ayala, edited by N.B. Adams and S.A. Stoudemire. 1945.
Obras selectas (novels and essays). 1957; revised edition, 1962.
Principios y finales de la novela (essays). 1958.
Divagaciones literarias (essays). 1958.
El pais del futuro: Mis viajes a los Estados Unidos, 1913-1914, 1919-1920. 1959.
Mas divagaciones literarias (essays), edited by Jose Garcia Mercadal. 1960.
Amistades y recuerdos (essays). 1961.
FabuIas y ciudades (essays). 1961.
Tabla rasa (essays). 1963.
Pequenos ensayos, edited by Jose Garcia Mercadal. 1963.
Tributo a Inglaterra (essays), edited by Jose Garcia Mercadal. 1963.
Ante Azorin (essays), edited by Jose Garcia Mercadal. 1964.
Nuestro Seneca, y otros ensayos, edited by Jose Garcia Mercadal. 1966.
Escritospoliticos, edited by P. Garagorri. 1967.
Viaje entretenido al pais del ocio: Reflexiones sobre la cultura griega. 1975.
Las terceras de ABC, edited by Jose Luis Vazquez-Dodero. 1976.
Apostillas y divagaciones. 1976.
Cincuenta anos de cartas intimas, 1904-1956, with Miguel Rodnguez- Acosta, edited by Andres Amoros. 1980.
Antologia asturiana de Perez de Ayala, edited by Elias Garcia Domfnguez. 1980.
Recuerdos asturianos de Ramon Perez de Ayala, edited by Manuel Fernandez Avello. 1980.
Cronicas londinenses, edited by Agustfn Coletes Blanco. 1985.
Trece dioses: Fragmentos de las memorias de Florencio Florez, edited by Geraldin M. Scanlon. 1989.
Critical Studies:
Ramon Perez de Ayala: Su vida y obras by Francisco Agustfn, 1927; Algunos aspectos literarios y lingUisticos de la obra de Don Ramon Perez de Ayala by Kasper Willem Reinink, 1959; De Troteras a Tigre Juan: Dos grandes temas de Ramon Perez de Ayala by Norma Urrutia, 1960; Perspectivo y contraste de Cadalso a Perez de Ayala by Mariano Baquero Goyanes, 1963; The Literary Perspectivism of Ramon Perez de Ayala by Frances Wyers Weber, 1966; Los senderos poeticos de Ramon Perez de Ayala by Victor G. Concha, 1970; Perez de Ayala y la nieb1a, 1970, El anticlericalismo de Perez de Ayala, 1975, and Recuerdos asturianos de Ramon Perez de Ayala, 1980, all by Manuel Fernandez Avello; Ramon Perez de AyaIa (in English) by Marguerite C. Rand, 1971; La novela intelectual de Ramon Perez de Ayala, 1972, and Vida y literatura en Troteras y danzaderas, 1973, both by Andres Amoros; Ramon Perez de Ayala: Tres novelas analizadas, 1972, and Estudios sobre Ramon Perez de Ayala, 1978, both by Pelayo H. Fernandez; Ramon Perez de Ayala by Miguel Perez Ferrero, 1973; Contra el honor: Las novelas normativas de Ramon Perez de Ayala by Julio Matas, 1974; Analisis de Belarmino y Apolonio by Sara Suarez Solfs, 1974; La prosa de Ramon Perez de Ayala by Jose Gonzalez Calvo, 1979; Ramon Perez de Ayala: Tigre Juan and El curandero de su honra (in English), 1980, and The Window and the Garden: The Modernist Fictions of Ramon Perez de Ayala, 1988, both by John J. Macklin; En torno a la obra narrativa de Ramon Perez de Ayala by Casiano E. Fernandez, 1982; Del relato modernista a la novela poematica: La narrativa breve de Ramon Perez de Ayala by Miguel Angel Lozano Marco, 1983; La novela mas popular de Perez de Ayala: Anatomia de A.M.D.G. by Victoriano Rivas Andres, 1983; Gran Bretana y los Estados Unidos en la vida de Ramon Perez de Ayala, 1984, and La hueIla anglonorteamericana en la novela de Perez de Ayala, 1987, both by Agustfn Coletes Blanco; The Paternal Orientation of Ramon Perez de Ayala by Thomas Feeny, 1985; Dualism and Polarity in the Novels of Ramon Perez de Ayala by Margaret Pol Stock, 1988; Etica y estetica: las novelas poematicas de la vida espanola de Ramon Perez de Ayala by Jose Ramon Gonzalez Garcia, 1992; Como leer a Ramon Perez de Ayala by Jose Ramon Gonzalez, 1993; Mundo helenico en la obra de Ramon Perez de Ayala by Margarita de Hoyos Gonzalez, 1994; Perez de Ayala: Bajo el signo de Britannia by Agustfn Coletes Blanco, 1997.
Novelist, critic, essayist, and poet, a disciple of philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset and a member of the cosmopolitan ”novecentista” group, Ramon Perez de Ayala was by turns a journalist, war correspondent, theatre critic, political activist, diplomat, and exile, scholar of the classics, modernist theorist (and practitioner), and satiric observer of his times. Best known for his novels, he was a prolific essayist and journalistic articles, and like members of the ”Generation of 1898” with which some literary histories include him, often incorporated essays in his fiction (El libro de Ruth [The Book of Ruth] comprises essays extracted from his novels). Social criticism appears in Politicay toros [Politics and Bulls], in which the author indicts the national tendency to produce self-styled experts on everything, especially the topics named in the title. Theatrical criticism, sometimes rather arbitrary and caustic, appears in Las mascaras [The Masks], probably the most famous and often studied of Ayala’s essays; the collection incorporates his reactions to plays and playwrights as well as his theory of tragedy. His aesthetics of the novel appear in Principios y finales de la novela [Beginnings and Ends (also, Principles and Goals) of the Novel], a key theoretical tool for understanding his later narratives. A large percentage of the numerous volumes of Perez de Ayala’s essays have been issued posthumously, compiled by various literary scholars who have collected essays on specific topics from the hundreds (and perhaps thousands) of articles Perez de Ayala wrote during the course of a long and prolific journalistic career. Additional literary criticism, most often originally published in Spanish or Latin American newspapers and periodicals, has been collected in book form under such titles as Divagaciones literarias [Literary Ramblings], Mas divagaciones literarias [More Literary Ramblings], Amistadesy recuerdos [Friendships and Recollections (i.e. of other writers)], Pequenos ensayos [Little Essays], Ante Azorin [Facing Azorin] and Apostillas y divagaciones [Annotations and Musings].
Widely travelled, Perez de Ayala also published numerous travel articles and reactions to his journeys abroad, including Exodo [Exodus], El pais del future: Mis viajes a los Estados Unidos, 1913-1914, 1919-1920 [The Country of the Future: My Trips to the United States], Fabulas y ciudades [Fables and Cities], Tributo a Inglaterra [Tribute to England], Cronicas londinenses [Chronicles of London], and Viaje entretenido al pais del ocio [Amusing Voyages to the Land of Leisure], subtitled Reflexions on Greek Culture. Reflections on the homeland of his youth, the small northern province of Asturias, appear in two collections commemorating the centennial of the author’s birth, Antologia asturiana de Perez de Ayala [Asturian Anthology] and Recuerdos asturianos de Ramon Perez de Ayala [Asturian Memories]. Perez de Ayala’s essays on other topics include classical philology and philosophy, as seen in Neustro Seneca [Our Seneca] and Tabla rasa [Black Tablet].
Ayala achieved only minor significance in the theatre (see for example, La revolucion sentimental (Sentimental Club) and as a poet. His first three books of poetry have a vague unifying motif consisting of the path or road found in each title. Lapaz det sendero [The Path of Peace], comprising poems of the earth, contains elements of the modernist lyric, while El sendero ennumerable [The Infinite Path] contains poems of the sea, considered his best poetry technically. In E1 sendero andante [The Moving Path], the author’s unifying theme is rivers, again in a modernist vein.
Perez de Ayala was at his best in the novel form, and his mature fiction secured his reputation as a writer during his lifetime. A definite separation exists between his first four novels, published between 1907 and 1912, representing a vaguely post-naturalist Galdosian realism, and the next five, published in rapid succession following a decade’s hiatus, from 1921 until 1926, when the author won the National prize for literature and abruptly, inexplicably suspended his career as a novelist. A common thread (consisting of repeated characters and continuing anecdotes) runs through the first four works, uniting them in the manner of Galdos or of Balzac’s Comedie humaine. Tinieblas en las cumbres [ Darkness on the Summits] was published under the Neoplatonic pseudonym ”Plotino Cuevas” (Plotinus Caves); via the narrative of playboys and libertines who hire a prostitute to accompany them to witness an eclipse on a mountain top, the work presents an allegory of man’s blindness to ultimate reality and life’s profundities. A.M.D.G. [To the Greater Glory of God] the title named after the motto of the Jesuits, with whom Perez de Ayala studied, recreates in bitter, polemic fashion his traumatized recollection of boarding-school days and indictment of religious education in Spain. Its sequel, Lapata de la raposa (The Fox’s Paw), which was eagerly anticipated since its predecessor had caused a scandal, was banned; the protagonist, seen in later life, exhibits the crippling effects of early ideological indoctrination and sexual (mis)education.
Greater maturity appears in the linked novels Luna de miel, luna de hiel (Honeymoon, Bittermoon) and its sequel, Los trabajos de Urbano y Simona [The Labours of Urbana and Simona], indicting Spain’s puritanical morality and failure to provide sex education. Generally considered his masterpiece, Belarmino y Apolonio (Belarmino and Apolonio) pits the worldview of classicism against that of romanticism, Apollonian against Dionysian, and Catholic dogma against human lives sacrificed to religious fanaticism in a tragicomic allegory of archetypal characters with implications for the conflict of science and religion, doubt and faith, intolerance and humanism. Tigre Juan (Tiger Juan) and its sequel, El curandero de su honra (The Healer of his Honour), burlesquing the Spanish codes of ”machismo” or Don Juanism and Calderonian honour, solidified the author’s fame.
Perez de Ayala also wrote short fiction, including novellas and short story collections, such as his last short novel Justicia [Justice], and the three important ”poematic novels”: Prometeo, Luz de domingo and La caida de los Limones (Prometheus, Sunday Sunlight, and The Fall of the House of Limon), all featuring interpolated poems. Prometheus, with aspects of the thesis novel, ridicules the concept of selective breeding or choosing a mate to produce a super-offspring. Much of the writer’s fiction, set in the fictitious city of Pilares, parodies the real-life model (the Asturian city of Oviedo where Perez de Ayala was born and educated). Self-centred, narrow, provincial attitudes are satirized in his collection, El ombligo del mundo [The World's Navel].
An exceptionally intelligent and accomplished novelist, Perez de Ayala is much-praised as a polished and original stylist who excels in the depiction of ideologies, usually found at the centre of his narrative conflicts. Belonging to a transitional group that bridges the period between the famed ”Generation of 1898” and the vaunted poets of the ”Generation of 1927,” he shares significant preoccupations of the earlier group and functions as an important link to European modernism and the vanguard. While his extensive lexicon and heightened intellectualism make him a challenging novelist, his sparkling humour and subtle satire amply reward the reader’s efforts.
