ABSTRACT
Although he died less than a decade ago at the ripe age of ninety-three, Gerald Brenan is already fast slipping into literary oblivion. Even in the field to which he made his greatest contribution—Spanish studies—graduate student would be hard pressed to identify the man, still less to have read his works. Like the South African poet, translator, and critic Roy Campbell, whom he resembles in a number of ways, Gerald Brenan led a life which sounds more romantic in the telling than it was in reality. "Gerald's latest act is to read the entire history of ceramics before he ha[s] to write half a page about Spanish pottery." Moreover, as Brenan got older the problem got worse, exacerbated by the decision to return to Churriana in 1953, where young women, both English and Spanish, were an ever-present temptation.
