Alan Deyermond FBA (24 February 1932 – 19 September 2009) was a British professor of medieval Spanish literature and Hispanist. His obituary called him "the English-speaking world's leading scholar of medieval Hispanic literature". He spent his academic career associated with one University of London college, Westfield College (later merged with Queen Mary College, to form Queen Mary and Westfield College). Deyermond started his career in 1955 as a lecturer at

Westfield College Westfield College was a small college situated in Hampstead, London, from 1882 to 1989. It was the first college to aim to educate women for University of London degrees from its opening. The college originally admitted only women as students and ...

, London. When Westfield merged with

Queen Mary College , mottoeng = With united powers , established = 1785 – The London Hospital Medical College1843 – St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College1882 – Westfield College1887 – East London College/Queen Mary College , type = Public researc ...

in 1992, he moved to the

Mile End Mile End is a district of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in the East End of London, England, east-northeast of Charing Cross. Situated on the London-to-Colchester road, it was one of the earliest suburbs of London. It became part of the m ...

site. In the period 1978–1980 he held a joint chair at Westfield and at Princeton University.

Biography

Deyermond was born in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...

, Egypt, where his father, an officer in the British Army, was stationed. He returned to England with his family in 1936. He began his secondary schooling in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

, and switched to

Victoria College, Jersey Victoria College is a Government-run, fee-paying, academically selective day schoolPembroke College, Oxford in 1950 on a scholarship, to read Modern Languages. An upper-level course which introduced Medieval Spanish literature showed him that much fruitful research could be accomplished in that field, and this became the focus of his subsequent research. In 1953 Deyermond began BLitt research. He published his first article in 1954. He became an assistant lecturer at Westfield in 1955; he received his advanced degree in 1957. Also in 1957, he married Ann Bracken, a History graduate of St Hugh's College, Oxford (they had one daughter, Ruth). He became a tenured professor in 1969. From 1986 to 1989 he was Vice-Principal of Westfield. From 1978 to 1980 he held a joint Chair, split between Westfield and Princeton University. He was visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin (1972), UCLA (1977), Northern Arizona University (1986), Johns Hopkins University (1987), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (1992), Universidade da Coruña (1996), UC Irvine (Distinguished Visiting Professor, 1998), and Spanish National Research Council (2002–04). Deyermond was a vegetarian from the age of 50 and a lifelong advocate of animal welfare and humane treatment. He was an active supporter of women's rights and feminist academic freedom. He was a member of the Liberal Party in the 1950s and 1960s, when he was involved in the Radical Reform Group. Throughout his life, he was an active member of the

Anglican Church Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the ...

. He died on 19 September 2009.

Published works

Deyermond's published output was prodigious – 40 books, written or edited, and almost 200 articles ranging through four centuries of medieval Hispanic literature. He recognised that a comprehensive study of Medieval literature would require several books which exist for studies in English but which were lacking for Spanish. He particularly lamented the lack of complete dictionaries, bibliographies and historical syntheses; as a result he authored the medieval volume for the Ernest Benn History of Spanish Literature (1969), which addressed the lack of an historical synthesis. His volumes of History and Criticism of Spanish Literature (1980 and 1991) carry an in-depth bibliography. A twenty-year research effort culminated in Lost Literature of the Castilian Middle Ages (1995), which Deyermond cited as his favourite work. His last major work was as editor of A Century of British Medieval Studies for the British Academy (2007). Deyermond founded the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar (1968) at Westfield, which has come to attract scholars from around the world. As part of the Seminar's scope, Deyermond began publishing (1995) the ''Publications of the Medieval Hispanic Research Seminar'', which carried articles that would be too long for a journal but not book-length. Some sixty volumes were issued, with Deyermond performing nearly all the work. Deyermond participated in founding Tamesis Books (now part of Boydell & Brewer) and of the series ''Research Bibliographies & Checklists'' (Grant & Cutler), of which he was General Editor. He was General Editor of Critical Guides to Spanish Texts (Grant & Cutler).

Partial list of published works

*Alan Deyermond, ''A Century of British Medieval Studies'' (British Academy Centenary Monographs, 2007) *Alan Deyermond, Keith Whinnom, Jeremy Lawrance, ''The Textual History and Authorship of Celestina'' (Department of Hispanic Studies, Queen Mary, University of London, 2007) *Alan Deyermond, David Graham Pattison, Eric Southworth, Peter Edward Russell ''Mio Cid Studies: 'some Problems of Diplomatic' Fifty Years on'' (Dept. of Hispanic Studies, Queen Mary, University of London, 2002) *Alan Deyermond, ''Point of View in the Ballad: The Prisoner, The Lady and the Shepherd and Others'' (Department of Hispanic Studies, Queen Mary and Westfield College, 1996) *Alan Deyermond, ''Historical Literature in Medieval Iberia'' (Department of Hispanic Studies, Queen Mary and Westfield College, 1996) *Alan Deyermond, ''La literatura perdida de la Edad Media castellana: catálogo y estudio, I: Épica y romances'', Obras de Referencia, 7 (Salamanca: Ediciones Univ. de Salamanca) *Alan Deyermond, ''Historia De La Literatura Espanola : La Edad Media (Letras e ideas: Instrumenta)'' (Editorial Ariel, 1995) *Alan Deyermond, Jeremy Lawrance (eds), ''Letters and Society in Fifteenth-century Spain: Studies Presented to P.E. Russell on His Eightieth Birthday'' (Dolphin Book Co., 1993) *Alan Deyermond, ''Tradiciones y puntos de vista en la ficción sentimental'' (UNAM, 1993) *Alan Deyermond and Charles Davis (eds.), ''Golden Age Spanish Literature: Studies in Honour of John Varey by His Colleagues and Pupils'' (Westfield College, 1991) *Alan Deyermond, ''"Mio Cid" Studies'' (Támesis Books, 1977) *Alan Deyermond, ''The Lost Literature of Medieval Spain: Notes for a Tentative Catalogue (Medieval Research Seminar, Department of Spanish, Westfield College, 1977) *Alan Deyermond, ''Lazarillo de Tormes: A Critical Guide'' (Grant and Cutler, 1975) *Alan Deyermond, ''Historia de la literatura española: La edad media'' (Editorial Ariel, 1973) *Alan Deyermond, ''A Literary History of Spain: The Middle Ages'' (Barnes & Noble, 1971) *Alan Deyermond, ''Epic Poetry and the Clergy: Studies on the Mocedades de Rodrigo'' (Tamesis Books, 1968) *Alan Deyermond, ''The Petrarchan Sources of La Celestina'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961; with new preface and supplementary bibliography, Greenwood, 1975, )

Honours

Deyermond became a fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars spa ...

in 1988. In June 2009 he was elected corresponding Fellow of the Real Academia Española, a distinction granted very few foreign academics. Honours were heaped upon him by scholarly societies worldwide. When he retired in 1997, two

festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

s were issued in his honour (the first such issue in his honour was compiled by American scholars in 1986). He gave hundreds of lectures and conference papers in over a dozen countries. Deyermond received honorary degrees from the universities of Oxford, Valencia, and Georgetown. He was a Fellow of the British Academy and became one of the small number of corresponding members of the Real Academia Española in 2009. He was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the

Medieval Academy of America The Medieval Academy of America (MAA; spelled Mediaeval until c. 1980) is the largest organization in the United States promoting the field of medieval studies. It was founded in 1925 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The academy publishes ...

in 1979. In 1994 he was awarded the Nebrija Prize, given each year by the

University of Salamanca The University of Salamanca ( es, Universidad de Salamanca) is a Spanish higher education institution, located in the city of Salamanca, in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It was founded in 1218 by King Alfonso IX. It is t ...

to the non-Spanish scholar who has contributed most to the understanding of Spanish culture and the Spanish language. A reflection of his standing in the world of Hispanism and medieval studies was his presidency of the :es:Asociación Internacional de Hispanistas (1992–95; honorary life president since 1995) and of the International Courtly Literature Society (1983). In 1985 he was made a socio de honour of the Asociación Hispánica de Literatura Medieval and, since 1999, an honorary fellow of Queen Mary, University of London.

References

Weblinks

David Hook. "Alan Deyermond (1932-2009)", in: ''Asociación hispánica de Literatura Medieval.Miembros de Honor''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Deyermond, Alan English literary critics Literary critics of Spanish Fellows of the British Academy 2009 deaths Academics of Westfield College Academics of Queen Mary University of London British Hispanists People educated at Calderstones School 1932 births Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America