Claudio Guillén (1924) studied in France and the United
States. During World War II he enlisted as a voluntary soldier in the army of General Charles de Gaulle. He
then became professor at various North American universities such as Princeton,
UCLA and Harvard, where for many years he was director of the department of
comparative literature. He then returned to Spain as head of department in the
Autonomous and Pompeu Fabra Universities in
Barcelona. He has been a visiting professor in Germany, Italy, and Brazil,
among other countries. In his numerous articles, such as Literature
as System (1971), Entre lo
uno y lo diverso (Between the One and the Diverse), 1985, El primer
Siglo de Oro (The First Golden Age), 1988,
and Teorías de la Historia Literaria (Theories of Literary History), 1989, his main themes have always been the novel and
poetry of the 16th and 20th centuries, as well as and the theories of genre and of literary history.