The name is absent

MODERN SPAIN AND ITS
LITERATURE¹

PERSONALITIES OF MODERN SPAIN

BEFORE I start my lectures tonight I feel that I should
explain certain points with regard to the course of three
lectures which I shall give. First, I would like to explain
why, being an Irishman, I should be lecturing on Spain. We,
in Ireland, feel that a close bond of friendship unites us to
Spain, for a great part of our history of civilization came to
us from Spain. I remember once having seen an old docu-
ment of Philip V in which it was stated that every Irishman
who went to Spain was ipso facto a Spanish citizen. And
then there are a great many documents extant which remind
us that civilization came into Ireland in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries direct from Spain. If you go back
further into the Middle Ages there are more documents : I
remember at Toledo seeing a manuscript which told of an
expedition made by a Spanish knight all the way to the shrine
of St. Patrick, which was known as St. Patrick’s Purgatory.
I thus feel that the great traditions which unite us to Spain
justify an Irishman in speaking on this subject.

In order to explain the purpose of this course of lectures
on Modern Spain, I am tonight going to occupy myself in a
general way with the country and I shall attempt to create a
background for the salient personalities. Tomorrow night

¹A course of three lectures delivered at the Rice Institute on March 20, 21,
and 22, 1929, by Dr. Walter Fitzwilliam Starkie, Professor of Spanish in
Trinity College, Dublin.

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