Ramón Menéndez Pidal

Spanish philologist and historian who worked extensively on the history of the Spanish language and Spanish folklore and folk poetry. One of his main topics was the history and legend of El Cid. He was nominated for a Nobel Prize 26 times, thus, being the most nominated person.

Among his first notable works were Manual elemental de gramática histórica española (1904; “Manual of Historical Spanish Grammar”) and the commentary El cantar de mío Cid (1908–1911; “The Song of My Cid”). Founding editor in 1914 of the Revista de filología española (“Journal of Spanish Philology”), he was also twice president of the Spanish Academy (1929–1939 and 1948–1968). Menéndez Pidal was elected to the Spanish Royal Academy (Real Academia Española) in 1901, and in 1925 its director. However, he resigned this position in 1939 as a protest to the political climate in Spain at the time, under the Republic. During the Spanish Civil War he was exiled to France, Cuba and the United States.

Menéndez Pidal's vast and meticulous research included monographs on folklore, literary history, the stylistics of Theresa of Ávila, Lope de Vega, and others, and on etymology and place-names. Throughout all his works Menéndez Pidal stressed the native roots of Spanish culture, including the Basque, Gothic, and Arabic.

Ramón Menéndez Pidal worked for many years on a comprehensive history of the Spanish language, which he could not complete in his lifetime; the two volumes have been published posthumously as Historia de la lengua española (2005).

His older brother, Juan Menéndez Pidal, whom he outlived by more than fifty years, was also a literary scholar of the folk poetry of Asturias. Another older brother, Luis Menéndez Pidal, was a realist painter and professor of art history.

In 1900 he married María Goyri, who in 1896 became the first Spanish woman to receive a degree in Philosophy and later, in 1909, became the first woman to attain a non-medical doctorate at a Spanish university.