José Ortega y Gasset – James Bryant Conant, with Federico de Onís as Intermediary. Correspondence (1933–1934). Part One

Abstract

In 1934 the President of Harvard University James Bryant Conant invited José Ortega y Gasset as Godkin Lecturer. The invitation was the result of the good offices of Federico de Onís, a Spanish teacher at Columbia University since 1916 and the director of the Instituto de las Españas en los Estados Unidos since its foundation in 1920. Onís was also a major disseminator of the Spanish and Latin American language and culture in the United States. Onís was quite aware of the success of the reception of The Revolt of the Masses (New York: Norton, 1932) by Ortega y Gasset. As he knew that Spanish writers had enormous difficulties to be accepted by the American readers and to become part of the intellectual and academic circles in the United States, the Spanish professor started up a campaign to promote Ortega within some selected American universities. The letters published here relate the story about Ortega’s invitation as Godkin Lecturer in the fall of 1934.