About Ramón Menéndez Pidal
Ramón Menéndez Pidal (Spanish pronunciation: [raˈmom meˈnendeθ piˈðal]; 13 March 1869 – 14 November 1968) was a Spanish philologist and historian. He worked extensively on the history of the Spanish language and Spanish folklore and folk poetry. One of his main topics was the history and legend of El Cid. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 26 separate years, the most nominations of any person. In 1914 the Centro founded the Revista de Filología Española (Journal of Spanish Philology), which would become the premier scholarly journal in the fields of linguistics and Medieval and Renaissance Spanish literature. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature a record 154 times, but never won. A ballad collection, designed for the general public, Flor nueva de romances viejos (1928) became a best seller, and includes some versions of ballads that Menéndez Pidal had authored himself. After the Spanish Civil War, Menéndez Pidal forcibly became an "independent scholar" and revised much of his earlier work. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 26 separate years, the most nominations of any other person.
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