Agustín Durán

Agustín Durán

Agustín Durán (born October 14, 1789 in Madrid , † December 1, 1862 in Madrid) was a Spanish literary scholar .

Agustín Durán first attended the Vergara seminar , then devoted himself to philosophical and legal studies and became a lawyer, but soon returned to philosophy and, on the side, zealously pursued historical and political studies, but especially literary history. After the Restoration in 1823, he lost a position at the general management that he had received in 1821. For this he became secretary of the inspection of the printing works and the book trade of the kingdom in 1834, in 1836 chief librarian of the royal library in Madrid.

Suspended as a result of the September Revolution of 1840, he was reinstated in his office in 1843 and appointed director of the library and a member of the Spanish Academy in 1854. He died in Madrid on December 1, 1862.

Durán's writings became epoch-making in the latest history of the development of Spanish national literature. His anonymously published Discurso sobre la decadencia del teatro español (Madrid 1828) and his Colección de romanceros y cancioneros (Madrid 1828–32, 5 volumes), its second edition Romancero general (Madrid 1849–51, 2 volumes) as a new work is to be considered, finally his collection of old Spanish comedies, the Talla española (Madrid 1834, 3 volumes), have contributed significantly to awakening the national feeling and the love for popular poetry. Durán also proved himself to be an expert on the old Spanish stage through larger articles in journals and through the introduction to the Salnetes de Ramón de la Cruz (Madrid 1843). In addition, he also earned a name for himself through his own poems, among which the fairy tale Las tres toronjas del verjel de amor (Madrid 1856) , written in the poetic language of the 15th century, deserves emphasis.

Agustín Durán was Antonio Machado's uncle .

Web links

• Literature by and about Agustín Durán in the catalog of the German National Library