María Rosa Alonso


María Rosa Alonso was a Spanish professor, philologist, essayist from the Canary Islands.

Biography

María Rosa Alonso was born in Tacoronte, Tenerife, December 28, 1909.
Her early works published in newspapers used the pseudonym of "María Luisa Villalba". The first article was titled "En torno a los libros de la guerra", and was published in the newspaper La Tarde in 1930. In 1932, she promoted the establishment of the Institute of Studies in the Canaries, and was a founding member of the organization. From 1939, she was a member of Museo Canario, although she had collaborated with the institution previously. In 1941, she was licensed in Spanish Philology in Madrid, having been a student of José Ortega y Gasset and Américo Castro.
Between 1942 and 1953, Alonso was a professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of La Laguna. She earned her PhD at the Central University of Madrid in 1948 with a thesis entitled "El Poema de Viana, Estudio histórico-literario de un poema épico del siglo XVII", directed first by D. Dámaso Alonso, and then by D. Joaquín de Entrambasaguas. Continuing with her research, she published various essays and articles. After having been banned from teaching by the Francoist government due to the republican affiliation of her family, she began the procedures to present herself to the University chair. After having been informed unofficially, but very clearly, that she would never be a professor there, Alonso resigned from teaching at the University of La Laguna and emigrated to Venezuela in 1953. Between 1958 and 1967, she was a professor of Spanish Philology at University of the Andes, in Mérida, Venezuela. In 1968, she removed to Madrid and published new works,. She participated in the "Politeia" foundation, dedicated to the promotion and development of cultural and artistic activities. In 1999, she returned to Tenerife.
Alonso was secretary and editor of the student magazine "Journals of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of Madrid " and also secretary of the "History Magazine of the University of La Laguna".
She died in Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife, May 27, 2011.

Awards and honors