P
rince
of
A
sturias
A
wards
1981-2014. S
peeches
3
The humanities are the soul of the University, their ideal centre, their conscience. If the soul is
relegated to an ancillary role, the “soulless” or —at the very least— bleak University will lose
its guiding role in intellectual life and in the country as a whole, which, lacking a compass, will
randomly drift in the murky waters of particularism.
Reflected and safeguarded in the humanities, Spanish Humanism is concerned with “flesh
and blood man”, present in the meditations of Unamuno, the everyday preacher of complete
humanization. Ortega took a stand against dehumanized art, while Eugenio d’Ors developed his
Science of Culture around man who works and plays. From these and other teachers, we learned
to live in the tangible and earthly, without forgetting that it is possible to fly: roots and wings, as
Juan Ramón Jiménez put it.
Ricardo Gullón
—
Prince of Asturias Award
for Literature
1989
Excerpt from the speech given on
the occasion of receiving the Prince
of Asturias Award for Literature
on 21/10/1989.
Laureates. Excerpts
