Alfredo Adolfo Camús (ca. 1817-1889) and the Hispanic historiography of Greek literature: between reality and desire

Abstract

As we have shown in other previous works, the life of Alfredo Adolfo Camús (ca. 1817-1889), professor of Latin literature since 1848 and later, since 1857, of Greek and Latin classical literature in Madrid Central University until almost his death in 1889, represents one of the most important tasks of the teaching of classical literatures in Spain during his time. In this paper we will review the major works that shaped the modern study of history of Greek literature and the transfer of such knowledge to the Spanish handbooks. On these precedents, we will see the intense and multifaceted activity that Camús developed in the teaching of the Greek literature, from the critique of the existing manuals in Spain, his own contributions as a teacher (especially his infl uential program of classical Greek and Latin literature of 1861) until his prologue to the translation of Karl Otfried Müller’s handbook, that was a true refl ection of an academic Spain that could be and was not.