Rafael Lapesa
(Valencia, 1908 - Madrid, 2001)

Jorge Guillén wrote a poem in his book Homenaje in which he described Rafael Lapesa Melgar as "the friendly man who hurries up
at work / with effortless gesture, without boasting.” The future great philologist became a fellow at the Center for Historical Studies in 1927. There he met his wife, Pilar Lago, and published his first articles in the Revista de Filología Española, the Center’s periodical: the review of an article by his colleague, M. García Blanco on Asturian dialects (1929), and “Notas para el léxico del siglo XIII“ (1931). He focused on that research field, though not exclusively, and years later, when the Center was no more, he published a memorable Historia de la lengua española (1942), expanded in successive re-editions (the first in 1951, the last one in 1980) This book kept alive the principles of the Spanish school of philology during a hard period for intellectual endeavors.

He was also interested in other areas of research: his seminal Introducción a los estudios literarios (1948) placed him in the prominent role of the renewal of Spanish literary education, begun by Dámaso Alonso, and continued by Fernando Lázaro Carreter. Lapesa’s temperate approach to literary criticism -based on style, but also on culture and history-soon appeared in two major books: La trayectoria poética de Garcilaso (1948), and La obra literaria del marqués de Santillana (1957). His numerous articles about Spanish writers were published in a book entitled De Ayala a Ayala (1988), that is, from the chancellor of the 14th century to the novelist of the 20th century. Meanwhile, as Guillén's poem pointed out, he paid "attention to papers/ combined endlessly / with attention to his fellowmen.”  Thus, Lapesa dedicated many years to complete the monograph written by his friend, Amado Alonso on the history of the pronunciation of Spanish, and to edit impeccably Crestomatía del español medieval, written by his teacher, Menéndez Pidal.