Américo Castro

Américo Castro studied at Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (Universidad de Granada), Universidad Central and Faculty of Arts of Paris. Rafael Lapesa Melgar and Manuel García Blanco are recorded as having studied under Américo Castro. The recorded working language is Spanish. Employment is recorded with Universidad Central, University of Texas at Austin and University of Wisconsin–Madison. Positions recorded include Spanish ambassador to the German Reich. Distinctions recorded are Officer of the Legion of Honour, honorary doctor of the University of Toulouse, honorary doctor of the University of Poitiers and Guggenheim Fellowship.

Castro was born to Spanish parents on May 4, 1885, in Cantagalo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In 1890, his parents returned with him to Spain. In 1904 he graduated from the University of Granada, going on to study at the Sorbonne in Paris from 1905 to 1907. After returning to Spain he organized the Center for Historical Studies in Madrid in 1910 and headed its department of lexicography. In 1915, he became a professor at the University of Madrid. Later, when the Spanish Republic was declared, Castro became its first ambassador to Germany in 1931. However, when the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, he moved to the United States, where he taught literature at the University of Wisconsin–Madison from 1937 to 1939, at the University of Texas from 1939 to 1940 and at Princeton University from 1940 to 1953. Among Castro's most notable scholarly works are The Life of Lope de Vega (1919); Language, Teaching, and Literature (1924); The Thought of Cervantes (1925); Ibero-America, Its Present and Its Past (1941); The Spaniards: an Introduction to their History (1948); The Structure of Spanish History (1954); and Out of the State of Conflict (1961).

He was employed by Universidad Central, University of Texas at Austin, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Princeton University and University of Barcelona. Recorded position is Spanish ambassador to the German Reich. He belonged to American Academy of Arts and Sciences, ibero-american union and Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres de Barcelona.