‘The Lyf So Short, the Craft So Long to Lerne’ James Francis Whiston (1945–2017)^*

* The authors are most grateful to Victor Dixon, Eamonn Rodgers and Don Cruickshank for facts, clarifications and memories which have influenced this Introduction. They have also benefited from listening, down the years, to James’ own recollections of his career; and they have taken information from some of his unpublished papers.

Abstract

This article provides a detailed assessment of the life of an influential scholar of modern Spanish literature and culture. James Whiston’s entire career is documented, first as a student, then as lecturer and professor in Spanish Studies at Trinity College, Dublin. Also recorded is his role as a General Editor of the Bulletin of Spanish Studies at a key period in its development. Whiston’s publications on Galdós and the nineteenth-century novel and on Machado and the Spanish Civil War——his two principal fields of research—are discussed in turn, taking into account other scholars’ opinions of his work. Whiston’s most enduring output is judged to be his monograph on Fortunata y Jacinta, together with his definitive edition of the same monumental work. Academics concerned to understand Galdós and prose-fiction in nineteenth-century Spain and beyond will consult Whiston’s publications with benefit for years to come. His other books include the first full-length study of Antonio Machado’s Writings and the Spanish Civil War (1996), in which all the important topics in Machado’s Civil War writings are addressed and explained. In Spain’s Civil War Whiston found a source of valuable insight into the relationship between the creative author and the imperatives of the time. His publications on Machado do much to enhance our knowledge of events as they were being experienced and commented upon in Spain and, more broadly, in Europe during a prolonged period of military conflict and civil upheaval which, nevertheless, became intensely productive of literary achievement.

Key words:

• James F. Whiston (1945–2017)
• Trinity College
• Dublin
• Royal Irish Academy
• Hispanism in the United Kingdom & Ireland
• History of the Bulletin of Spanish Studies
• Nineteenth-century prose fiction in Spain
• Realist Novel
• Benito Pérez Galdós
• Fortunata y Jacinta
• Spanish Civil War
• Poets of the Spanish Civil War
• Antonio Machado
• Early twentieth-century Spanish literature

Notes

* The authors are most grateful to Victor Dixon, Eamonn Rodgers and Don Cruickshank for facts, clarifications and memories which have influenced this Introduction. They have also benefited from listening, down the years, to James’ own recollections of his career; and they have taken information from some of his unpublished papers.

1 See Victor Dixon’s email to Ann Mackenzie, dated 2 April 2017.

2 Quoted from a reference James wrote in support of Dr Ian Gibson (a former student of Ted Riley’s at TCD). This reference, dated 4 de febrero de 2006, of which there is a copy among James’ papers, proposed Ian Gibson as a candidate for the prestigious Premio Príncipe de Asturias.

3 It is worth noting that twenty years after Victor Dixon retired, and ten years after James’ retirement, TCD finally moved to advertise its Chair of Spanish. The person appointed is expected to take up her/his post from 1 September 2019, or as soon as possible thereafter. For the first time in the history of the chair, TCD is seeking to appoint a specialist in Latin American Studies.

4 Quoted from the TCD regulations governing the award of the higher doctorate of LittD.

5 Walter Starkie had been professor and head of department at Trinity College, Dublin between 1926 and 1947. He was also, as it happens, one of the founding members of the Bulletin’s Editorial Committee on which he served from 1949 until his death in 1976. James had a special interest in Starkie. See James Whiston, ‘Starkie, Walter Fitzwilliam (1894–1976), Hispanic Scholar and Travel Writer’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford U. P., 2011), <https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/75075> (accessed 2 November 2018).

6 See James Whiston, ‘Language and Situation in Part I of Fortunata y Jacinta’, Anales Galdosianos, VII (1972), 79–92.

7 See James Whiston, ‘The Materialism of Life: Religion in Fortunata y Jacinta’, Anales Galdosianos, XIV (1979), 65–81; ‘Un voluntario realista: The First Part of a Reply to Azcárate’s Minuta de un testamento?’, Anales Galdosianos, XX:2 (1985), 129–40; ‘Heroes and Villains in Galdós: Lo prohibido and Macbeth’, Anales Galdosianos, XXVII–XXVIII (1992–1993), 77–92; ‘The Alpha/Beta Version of the Second Half of Tristana’, Anales Galdosianos, XXXVIII–XXXIX (2003–2004), 127–37.

8 See David Lodge, Language of Fiction: Essays in Criticism and Verbal Analysis of the English Novel (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966); Wayne C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1961).

9 Among works by these literary critics to which James was especially indebted, were: William Empson, Seven Types of Ambiguity (London: Chatto & Windus, 1930); and I. A. Richards, Principles of Literary Criticism (London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner 1925) and Practical Criticism: A Study of Literary Judgement (London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner 1929).

Unless otherwise stated, observations attributed to James Whiston here and elsewhere in this Introduction are derived from his own notes and papers.

10 See Germán Gullón, review of James Whiston, The Early Stages of Composition of Galdós’s ‘Lo prohibido’, Kentucky Romance Quarterly, 31:2 (1984), 239–40.

11 See John Livingston Lowes, The Road to Xanadu: A Study in the Ways of the Imagination (Boston/New York: Houghton, Mifflin/London: Constable, 1927).

12 For these extracts, see Rhian Davies, review of James Whiston, Creatividad textual e intertextual en Galdós, Modern Language Review, 98:3 (2003), 743–44.

13 See Alan E. Smith, review of James Whiston, The Practice of Realism: Change and Creativity in the Manuscript of Galdós’s ‘Fortunata y Jacinta’, Symposium, 60:2 (Summer 2006), 126–28.

14 See Brian J. Dendle, review of James Whiston, The Practice of Realism, Romance Quarterly, 53:1 (Winter 2006), 79–80.

15 This quotation is taken from James Whiston, Galdós: Our Contemporary, The Fifth Annual Pérez Galdós Lecture, 2002 (Sheffield: Univ. of Sheffield, 2002), unpaginated; <http://gep.group.shef.ac.uk/whiston.html> (accessed 2 November 2018).

16 See Geoffrey Ribbans, Conflicts and Conciliations: The Evolution of Galdós’s ‘Fortunata y Jacinta’ (West Lafayette: Purdue U. P., 1997). The quotations are taken from a reference which Geoffrey Ribbans wrote in 1998, in support of James Whiston’s promotion to Associate Professor at Trinity College, Dublin.

17 See, for instance, James Whiston, ‘Language and Situation in Part I of Fortunata y Jacinta’, Anales Galdosianos, VII (1972), 79–92; ‘The Materialism of Life: Religion in Fortunata y Jacinta’, Anales Galdosianos, XIV (1979), 65–81; ‘Determinism and Freedom in Fortunata y Jacinta’, BHS, LVII:2 (1980), 113–27; and ‘Ironía y psicología en Lo prohibido de Galdós’, Romance Quarterly, 37:2 (1990), 199–208.

18 See James Whiston, ‘Two Versions of Trafalgar: Galdós’s Trafalgar (1873) and Manuel Marliani’s Combate de Trafalgar (1850)’, Forum for Modern Language Studies, 20:2 (1984), 154–64.

19 See James Whiston, ‘Heroes and Villains in Galdós: Lo prohibido and Macbeth’, Anales Galdosianos, XXVII–XXVIII (1992–1993), 77–92.

20 See James Whiston, ‘ “Laid in Earth”: Some Physical Touches in Valera’s Pepita Jiménez’, in Theatre, Culture and History in Spain. Studies and Researches in Honour of Ann L. Mackenzie, ed., with preface, by James Whiston & Ceri Byrne, with guest editor Jeremy Robbins; intro. by Don W. Cruickshank & Victor Dixon, with C. Alex Longhurst, BSS, XCII:8–10 (2015), 427–40 (p. 427).

21 See James Whiston, ‘Campo, huerta, jardín, estufa: la domesticación del deseo en Pepita Jiménez’, in Actas del Primer Congreso Internacional sobre Don Juan Valera, coord. Matilde Galera Sánchez (Cabra [Córdoba]: Ayuntamiento de Cabra, 1997), 265–73; ‘The Use and Abuse of Hospitality in Valera’s Pepita Jiménez’, in ‘Fortiter sed Suaviter’: Hispanic Studies and Researches in Honour of Graeme Davies, ed., with an intro., by Ann L. Mackenzie & Ceri Byrne, BSS, XCVI:double issue (forthcoming 2019); available online at <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14753820.2017.1434334> (accessed 2 November 2018).

22 See Maurice Hemingway, review of James Whiston, Juan Valera: ‘Pepita Jiménez’ (London: Grant & Cutler, 1977), BHS, LVI:3 (1979), 258–59.

23 This paper appeared in Actas del Noveno Congreso Internacional de Estudios Galdosianos (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: Ediciones del Cabildo Insular de Gran Canaria, 2011), 93–102. Other papers delivered at conferences on Galdós include: ‘Las pruebas corregidas de Fortunata y Jacinta’, in Actas del Segundo Congreso Internacional de Estudios Galdosianos, 2 vols (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: Ediciones del Cabildo Insular de Gran Canaria, 1979), I, 258–65; ‘Historia y proceso creativo en el Episodio nacional, Un voluntario realista’, in Actas del Tercer Congreso Internacional de Estudios Galdosianos, 2 vols (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: Ediciones del Cabildo Insular de Gran Canaria, 1989), II, 337–46; ‘Tradición y modernidad en el pensamiento narrativo de Galdós: el caso de Tristana’, in Actas del Sexto Congreso Internacional de Estudios Galdosianos (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: Ediciones del Cabildo Insular de Gran Canaria, 2000), 685–98; ‘Transformación y realismo en La razón de la sinrazón’, in Actas del Séptimo Congreso Internacional de Estudios Galdosianos (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: Ediciones del Cabildo Insular de Gran Canaria, 2004), 591–600.

24 The quotations and information used here are taken from the first paragraph of Whiston, Galdós: Our Contemporary, n.p. [p. 1].

25 Jan Kott, Shakespeare: Our Contemporary (London: Methuen/New York: Doubleday, 1964).

26 James’ description of Machado is taken from the reference he wrote in 2006 in support of Ian Gibson (cf. note 2, above).

27 See James Whiston, ‘Leonor and the Last Three Lines of Machado’s A un olmo seco’, Neophilologus, 70:3 (1986), 397–405; ‘ “Más fuerte que la guerra”: The Civil-War Sonnets of Antonio Machado’, Modern Language Review, 88:3 (1993), 644–65; ‘ “Unas pocas palabras verdaderas”: The Naming and Framing of Nature in Machado’s Campos de Castilla’, in Studies in Modern Hispanic Literatures in Honour of Donald L. Shaw, ed., with an intro., by Robin W. Fiddian & C. Alex Longhurst, BSS, 82:3–4 (2005), 509–27.

28 See James Whiston, ‘La inversión de la retórica en “La vejez en los pueblos” de Miguel Hernández’, in Miguel Hernández, cincuenta años después. Actas del I Congreso Internacional, coord. José Carlos Rovira, 2 vols (Alicante: Comisión del Homenaje a Miguel Hernández, 1992), II, 975–82; ‘The Word and the War: “Soft Power” and “Hard Power” in Three Republican Poems of the Spanish Civil War’ (published in this Festschrift); ‘Syntax and Semantics in the Dramatis Personae of Lorca’s La casa de Bernarda Alba’, in Spanish Theatre: Studies in Honour of Victor F. Dixon, ed. Kenneth Adams, Ciaran Cosgrove & James Whiston (Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2001), 177–89.

29 See James Whiston, ‘ “Obligación de opinar”: The Limits of Pluralism in Manuel Azaña’s La velada en Benicarló’, in The Republic Besieged: Civil War in Spain 1936–1939, ed., with an intro., by Paul Preston & Ann L. Mackenzie (Edinburgh: Edinburgh U. P., 1996), 241–60; ‘ “La virtud de la palabra”: Manuel Azaña’s Diaries of the Spanish Civil War’, Neophilologus, 82:3 (1998), 411–24; and ‘ “República y paz”: Monarchy and Militarism in Azaña’s Writings on Primo de Rivera’s Coup d’état of 1923’, BHS, LXXVII:4 (2001), 475–91.

30 The insightful observations quoted here are all taken from comments James made about Machado, to be found in his unpublished papers.

31 See E. A. Southworth, review of James Whiston, Antonio Machado’s Writings and the Spanish Civil War, BHS, LXXV:2 (1998), 281–82.

32 See Andrew A. Anderson, review of James Whiston, Antonio Machado’s Writings and the Spanish Civil War, Romance Quarterly, 48:1 (2001), 65–66.

33 Quoted from an observation made by James Whiston in his unpublished papers.

34 It is probable that James became seriously interested in researching Machado’s manuscript ‘Notebooks’ while writing a review-article for the Bulletin about the following editions: El fondo machadiano de Burgos. Los papeles de Antonio Machado, intro. & coord. Alberto C. Ibáñez Pérez, digitalización de textos e imágenes Mª Pilar Alonso Abad, 2 vols (Burgos: Institución Fernán González, 2004); and Colección Unicaja manuscritos de los Hermanos Machado, ed. Rafael Alarcón Sierra, Pablo de Barco & Antonio Rodríguez Almodóvar, 9 vols (Málaga: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Fundación Unicaja, 2005). For this review-article, see James Whiston, ‘Antonio Machado’s Manuscripts’, BSS, LXXXV:4 (2008), 507–18.

35 Quoted from James’ notes (preserved in his papers) for his planned book on the exile of life in Machado’s works.

36 See email from Victor Dixon to Ann Mackenzie, dated 3 April 2002.

37 See email from James Whiston to Ann Mackenzie, dated 14 January 2016.

38 James Whiston reviewed books for journals such as Comparative Literature, Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, Anales Galdosianos, Modern Language Review, Romance Quarterly and Hispanic Research Journal. For a full list of his book reviews, see Ceri Byrne, ‘The Publications, Appointments and Awards (1971–2018) of James Whiston’, published in this Festschrift.

39 Email from David Green, Taylor & Francis, dated 26 January 2017, to Ann Mackenzie, General Editor, Bulletin of Spanish Studies.

40 See James Whiston, ‘Patience and Pragmatism: Galdós’s Rewriting of the Last Four Chapters of Halma’, Anales Galdosianos, LII (2017), 79–89.

41 See, for instance, Ann Mackenzie’s email to co-General Editor Julia Biggane, dated 24 March 2014.

42 Email from James Whiston to Alex Longhurst, dated 12 January 2016.

43 Email from James Whiston to Ann Mackenzie, dated 14 January 2016. The quotation is from Geoffrey Chaucer, The Parlement of Foules, line 1.

44 The quotations in this paragraph are taken from an email sent from James’ wife Stephanie Whiston to Ann Mackenzie, dated 15 January 2017.

45 The address which Ciaran Cosgrove gave at the funeral service has partially inspired his contribution to this memoir. For her part in the Introduction, Ann Mackenzie has drawn some material from the eulogy which by invitation she wrote for delivery at the Annual General Meeting of the conference of the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland held at Cardiff University, 9–12 April 2017. The eulogy was delivered on Ann’s behalf by the then AHGBI President, Isabel Torres, General Editor of the Bulletin.

* Disclosure Statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.