Fernando Lázaro Carreter

He died on 4 March 2004 in Madrid at aged 80 from a multiple organ failure.

The recorded working language is Spanish. The field of work recorded is linguistics, journalism and literary criticism. Places of work recorded in the authority are Heidelberg. Employment is recorded with Complutense University of Madrid, University of Salamanca and Autonomous University of Madrid. Positions recorded include professor and full professor. Distinctions recorded are Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Alfonso X the Wise, Saint George's Cross and Mariano de Cavia' Price.

• Name — Fernando Lázaro Carreter • Born — 13 April 1923 • Birthplace — Zaragoza, Spain • Died — 13 March 2004 • Place of death — Madrid, Spain • Occupation — Linguist, journalist and literary critic • Education — * Complutense University of Madrid • University of Zaragoza • Employer — * Complutense University of Madrid • University of Salamanca • Autonomous University of Madrid • Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg • University of Texas at Austin • University of Toulouse • Organization — * Colegio Libre de Eméritos

His works fall into five categories: linguistic studies, literary studies, secondary‑school textbooks, journalistic articles, and dramatic works.

• El habla de Magallón. Notas para el estudio del aragonés vulgar (1945), a dialect study on the vernacular speech of Magallón. • His doctoral thesis, Las ideas lingüísticas en España durante el siglo XVIII (1949), was one of the first investigations into the history of linguistic ideas in Spain. • His 1972 Academy inauguration lecture Crónica del Diccionario de Autoridades (1713–1740) is also notable. • The Diccionario de términos filológicos was first published in 1953, with expanded editions in 1963 and 1968—notwithstanding its age, it remains a key reference. • In the 1970s he applied generative grammar perspectives to Spanish linguistics, notably debating Emilio Alarcos Llorach on the definite article and passive constructions (1975). • Many of his linguistic essays are collected in Estudios de lingüística (1980).

He produced both author‑ and genre‑specific studies and works in literary theory. • Among his literary studies on the Golden Age are Estilo barroco y personalidad creadora (1966, expanded ed. 1974), Clásicos españoles. De Garcilaso a los niños pícaros (2003), and the picaresque-focused «Lazarillo de Tormes» en la picaresca (1972), as well as his philological edition of Quevedo’s La vida del Buscón llamado Don Pablos (1965). • In literary theory he introduced structuralist and Russian Formalist ideas, particularly Roman Jakobson’s Poetics. His main contributions include Estudios de Poética (la obra en sí) (1976) and De poética y poéticas (1990).

His theatre reviews appeared weekly in Gaceta Ilustrada and later in Blanco y Negro. Only a few were compiled posthumously in Azaña, Lorca, Valle y otras sombras His language‑correction articles under the heading El dardo en la palabra began in *Informaciones* (1975), were syndicated by Agencia EFE, ran in *El País* (1999–2003), and were collected in the books El dardo en la palabra (1997) and El nuevo dardo en la palabra (2003). These writings popularized language usage debates with a humorous tone but without normative authority.

In the 1950s he wrote two plays, La señal (1952) and Un hombre ejemplar (1956), the former staged at Madrid's Teatro María Guerrero in 1956. He achieved greater success with the comedy La ciudad no es para mí, under the pseudonym Fernando Ángel Lozano. It premiered in theatre from 1962 (with Paco Martínez Soria) and was adapted into a film in 1965. He once described the play as “a venial sin.”