The information provided on this and other pages by me, Robert Havard, is my own personal responsibility and not that of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Any opinions expressed are my own and are in no way to be taken as those of U.W.A
Having taught at the universities of Cardiff, UCLA, Auckland and Liverpool, I returned to Wales some twenty years ago and found its west coast suited my liking for poetry and art. To my surprise, ten books and thirty-odd articles have appeared to date, work that has evolved naturally, I like to think. The 1927 Generation of poets -Lorca, Guillén, Salinas- were my first subjects. A doctoral thesis on Guillén’s Cántico led to contact with this most generous of poets who encouraged me –as had my tutor, José María Aguirre- to treat critical and creative work as complementary. |
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A book on Jorge Guillén (1985), with a metaphysical bias, was followed by one that attempted to bring together my views on the various poets who had preoccupied me in this first phase of research: From Romanticism to Surrealism: Seven Spanish Poets (1988). My interest in Romanticism had been spurred by Bécquer and especially Rosalía de Castro, a Galician with a Celtic sense of place, and the book’s binding theme was that the step from Goya and Espronceda to Dalí and Alberti is a small one.
I came to see Rafael Alberti as a key figure in the Spanish avant-garde, not least because he traces Surrealism’s three phases of evolution: the Freudian, metaphysical (Hegelian) and Marxist. Some creative figures, it is true, keep resolutely to the first phase, which is their prerogative; but what I found alarming was the virtual denial in Spanish criticism of anything beyond the Freudian, as if Breton had written only one manifesto. My approach culminated in The Crucified Mind: Rafael Alberti and the Surrealist Ethos in Spain (2001), which put the polemical thesis that Spain, with its institutionalized oppression, was predisposed to Surrealism, that is to say, to neurosis, transcendence and revolution. It struck me as hardly coincidental that so many major avant-garde figures in Spain had a Jesuit-style formation, which resulted in work that is essentially a cathartic response to repression.
Along the way I had taken a keener interest in political history and, unexpectedly, had written Wellington’s Welsh General: A Life of Sir Thomas Picton (1995), which brutal tale I thought worth telling partly because it was so inextricably linked with things Spanish, and partly because Picton’s letters were on my doorstep in the National Library of Wales. I soon discovered how time-consuming this kind of research is! Chastened, and with only modest returns on time invested in the Spanish Civil War, I shelved plans to write a book on miners from my village who had served in the International Brigades. The appearance, at last, of a volume of poems, Look Up Without Laughing (1998), with Arts Council of Wales funding, reminded me where my vocation lay. One benefit of the Picton book, though, were letters that came from distant parts, notably Trinidad, while a dubious outcome of the poetry was an obituary note in the Western Mail on a certain valleys’ poet, which brought to mind Mark Twain’s ‘reports of my death have been much exaggerated’.
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By now I was dazzled by Dalí and agape at Goya. I had continued to write on poets –notably Lorca and Machado- and was editing A Companion to Spanish Surrealism, which promises to offer a comprehensive assessment. But in general the Prado’s library was now making a welcome change from the echoing halls of the Biblioteca Nacional. I noted that even the best art-historians (with some notable exceptions: Glendinning, Ramos Sánchez) tend not to be hugely knowledgeable about Spanish literature. There opened up a prospect that extended from the Baroque to Picasso (who is Spanish, I have come to see after all), to Frida Kahlo and beyond. Articles have started to emerge, on Goya, on a comparative study of Velázquez and Góngora, with more –including a book on Spanish Art- in the pipeline.
It has been exciting as well as challenging to attempt to develop a degree of competence in a new discipline, though, for me, poetry and painting are very close, ‘sister arts’, not far removed, in turn, from cinema. This is reflected in my teaching and in multi-genre courses with an eye for the socio-political context. I consider myself fortunate to be able to lecture almost exclusively on topics that I write about; fortunate too that Surrealism has engaged some postgraduates and that a comparative approach shows signs of doing likewise.|
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Curriculum vitae
Born Treherbert, Rhondda Valley, 1944.
B.A. (First) in Hispanic Studies (1965) and Ph.d (1969), University of Wales, Cardiff.
Appointed: Temporary Lecturer at Cardiff (1968-9), Assistant Professor of Spanish at UCLA (1969-71), Spanish Master at Taunton School (1971), at Upper Rhondda Comprehensive (1972); Lecturer/Senior Lecturer at Auckland University (1973-9), temporary Lecturer at Liverpool University (1980), Lecturer at University of Wales, Aberystwyth (1981- ), Senior Lecturer (1988), Reader (1992), Professor (1997).
Administrative
My responsibilities include having run the Spanish section at University of Wales, Aberystwyth, for many years, having twice been Acting Head of the Department of European Languages, 1992-3, 2000-1, my role as Intercalary Year Tutor, and as member of the Advisory Panel of the journal Romance Studies..
Publications
A. Books
1. Jorge Guillén: Cántico, Critical Guides to Spanish Texts
(London: Grant and Cutler/Tamesis, 1986), pp. 123.
2. García Lorca: Mariana Pineda, critical edition, verse
translation, with an introduction and commentary
(Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1987), pp. viii + 175.
3. From Romanticism to Surrealism: Seven Spanish Poets
(Bécquer, Rosalía, Machado, Guillén, Salinas, Lorca, Alberti),
(Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1988), pp. x + 303.
4. García Lorca: Romancero gitano/Gypsy Ballads, critical edition,
verse translation, with an introduction and commentary
(Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1990), pp. viii + 161.
5. Lorca, Poet and Playwright, Essays in Honour of J.M.Aguirre,
ed. and contributor (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1992),
pp. viii + 159.
6. Wellington’s Welsh General: A Life of Sir Thomas Picton,
(London: Aurum Press, 1996), pp. viii + 279.
7. Antonio Machado: Campos de Castilla, critical edition, with an
introduction and commentary (London: Gerald Duckworth/Bristol
Classical Press, 1997), pp. liv+121.
8. Look Up Without Laughing, poems (Llandysul: Gomer, 1998), 72pp.
9. The Crucified Mind: Rafael Alberti and the Surrealist Ethos in Spain
(London: Támesis, 2001) , xii + 251pp.
10. A Companion to Spanish Surrealism, ed. and contributor (London:
Támesis, forthcoming July 2004), 300pp.
B. Articles (in academic journals)
1. ‘The early décimas of Jorge Guillén’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 47 (1971), 111-127.
2. ‘The Symbolic Ambivalence of Green in García Lorca and Dylan Thomas’,
The Modern Language Review, 67 (1972), 810-819.
3. ‘The romances of Meléndez Valdés’, in Studies in the Spanish and Portuguese
Ballad, ed. N.D.Shergold (London: Támesis/University of Wales Press, 1972), 111-126.
4. ‘The Reality of Words in the Poetry of Pedro Salinas’, Bulletin of Hispanic
Studies, 51 (1974), 28-47.
5. ‘Image and Persona in Rosalía de Castro’s En las orillas del Sar’, Hispanic Review,
42 (1974), 393- 411.
6. ‘Las décimas tempranas de Jorge Guillén’, in Jorge Guillén, El escritor
y la crítica, edited by B.Ciplijauskaité (Madrid, Taurus, 1975), 297-316.
7. ‘Lorca’s Buster Keaton’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 54 (1977), 13-20.
8. ‘Pedro Salinas and Courtly Love. The amada in La voz a ti debida: Woman,
Muse and Symbol’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 56 (1979), 123-144.
9. ‘The Seventh Art of Luis Buñuel: Tristana and the Rites of Freedom’,
Quinquereme, 5 (1982), 56-74.
10. ‘Antonio Machado’s Knowledge of Bergson Before 1911’, Neophilologus,
67 (1983), 204-214.
11. ‘Luis Buñuel: Objects and Phantoms. The Montage of Viridiana’, in
Luis Buñuel: A Symposium, ed. M.A.Rees (Leeds: Trinity and All Saints’
College, 1983), 59-87.
12. ‘Saudades as Structure in Rosalía de Castro’s En las orillas del Sar’,
Hispanic Journal, 5 (1983), 29-41.
13. ‘The Ironic Rationality of Razón de amor. Pedro Salinas: Logic, Language
and Poetry’, Orbis Litterarum, 38 (1983), 254-270.
14. ‘Guillén, Salinas and Ortega: Circumstance and Perspective’, Bulletin of
Hispanic Studies, 60 (1983), 305-318.
15. ‘The romance in Ramón Sender’s Requiem por un campesino español’,
The Modern Language Review, 79 (1984), 88-96.
16. ‘Meaning and Metaphor of Syntax in Bécquer, Guillén and Salinas’,
Iberoromania, 19 (1984), 66-81.
17. ‘La metafísica de Cántico: Jorge Guillén, Ortega, Husserl y Heidegger’,
Sin nombre, San Juan de Puerto Rico, 14 (1984), 54-71.
18. ‘Fast Car Metaphysics: Jorge Guillén and Pedro Salinas’, Romance Studies,
6 (1985), 96-109.
19. ‘The Hidden Parts of Bernarda Alba’, Romance Notes, 26 (1985), 102-108.
20. ‘Paralelos entre los sentimientos gallegos y galeses de la saudade-hiraeth:
un espejo céltico de la neurosis rosaliana’, in Rosalía de Castro e o seu tempo,
vol.1 (Santiago de Compostela, Consello da Cultura Galega, 1986), 217-224.
21. ‘Dream and Nightmare in Lorca’s Poeta en Nueva York’, in Catholic Tastes and Times
(Essays Presented to Father Michael E. Williams), (Leeds: Trinity and All Saints’College, 1987), 199-232.
22. ‘Mariana Pineda: Politics, Poetry and Periodization’, in Leeds’ Papers
on Lorca and Civil War Verse, ed. M.A.Rees (Leeds: Trinity and All Saints’ College, 1988), 43-64.
23. ‘Telling a Tale, Living a Lie: Lorca’s ‘La casada infiel’’, Neophilologus, 7 7 (1993), 243-247.
24. ‘Christ, the Paranoiac, the Surrealist, the Communist, Rafael Alberti’, in
Changing Times in Hispanic Culture, ed. Derek Harris (Aberdeen: Centre for
the Study of the Hispanic Avant-Garde, 1996), 133-142.
25. ‘Rafael Alberti’s De un momento a otro: The Matter of Poetry, Politics
and War’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 73 (Glasgow, 1996), 81-103.
26. 'The Sins of the Fathers: Jesuit Echoes in Rafael Alberti's Sobre los ángeles
and Sermones y moradas', Romance Studies, 31 (1998), 33-44.
27. ‘Rhyme and its Reasons in the Translation of Lorca’s Romancero gitano’,
(Donaire, 11, Instituto Cervantes, November 1998), 38-46.
28. 'Rafael Alberti, Maruja Mallo and Giménez Caballero: Materialist
Images and the Issue of Surrealism', The Modern Language Review, 93
(1998), 1007-1020.
29 ‘Rafael Alberti and the Ethos of Surrealism in Spain’ [Occasional
Papers Series, No. 28, University of Bristol, July 1999], 21pp.
30. ‘Rafael Alberti in the Classroom: Matthew, Maths and Marx’, Bulletin
of Hispanic Studies (Liverpool, October, 1999), 471-484.
31. ‘Lorca’s Mantic Poet in New York’, Anales de laliteratura contemporánea
(October, 2000), 439-477.
32. ‘Thomas Picton and Sir Thomas Picton: Two Welsh Soldiers in Spain’,
Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, vol 7 New Series
(2001), 164-182.
33. ‘Sir Thomas Picton [1758-1815]’, invited article [of 4,500 words] in the New
Dictionary of National Biography (Clarendon Press, Oxford), forthcoming,
2005.
34. ‘Goya’s House Revisited: Why a Deaf Man Painted his Walls Black’, Bulletin
of Spanish Studies, 15pp + 10 illustrations; forthcoming 2004.
35. ‘Velázquez and Góngora: the Real and its Exaltation’, Bulletin of Spanish
Studies, 16 pp. + 8 illustrations; forthcoming 2005.
36. ‘The Riddle Register in Lorca’s Poeta en Nueva York’, chapter in feshtschrift, ed. D.George,
forthcoming, University of Wales Press, 2005.
I have given invited papers at the Universities of Cardiff, Swansea, Aberystwyth, Los Angeles (UCLA), Bristol, at the Instituto Cervantes (London) and at Carlton House, London, to the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion. I have given conference papers at Santiago de Compostela, Lexington (Kentucky), Aberdeen, Leeds, Trinity and All Saints’ (three times), the Instituto Cervantes (Manchester), Tangier (in collaboration with the British Council of Morocco) and many at Gregynog Hall, at the University of Wales Hispanist Conferences and in association with Romance Studies.
Grants
My most recent research grants are: from the British Academy for research in Madrid in April 2002 on the proposed book, The Spanish Eye: Velázquez, Goya, Picasso, Dalí, The Metamorphosis of the Real; from the Aurelius Fund as a subvention towards illustration costs for The Crucified Mind. Rafael Alberti and the Surrealist Ethos in Spain (London: Támesis/Boydell & Brewer, 2001); from the Instituto Cervantes, (London) as a subvention towards illustration costs for Companion to Spanish Surrealism (London: Támesis/Boydell & Brewer), and from UW Aberystwyth as a subvention towards production costs for the same book.
Interests
Painting, photography, bridge, football, snooker.
Professor Robert Havard
European Languages
University of Wales
Aberystwyth
Ceredigion
SY23 3DY
E-mail rgh@aber.ac.uk
http://users.aber.ac.uk/rgh
Tel. 01970
622561
Fax. 01970 622553
