Madrid, Spain, Feb 28, 2012 / 12:05 pm
Biographer Joseph Pearce says the famous South African poet Roy Campbell saw the Spanish Civil War as a religious conflict between Christianity and atheistic modernism.
In a recent interview with CNA, Pearce said Campbell – who was the inspiration behind the character Aragorn in Tolkien's “Lord of the Rings” – believes “the war in Spain was a battle between Christian tradition and atheistic modernism. In other words, he saw it as a religious conflict.”
As the publication nears for his new book, “Roy Campbell: Spain Saved My Soul,” Pierce pointed to an episode in the poet’s life in which he saved various manuscripts written by St. John of the Cross from anti-clerical forces.
While living in Toledo in the 1930s, Campbell and his wife Mary became close friends with the Carmelite friars, “one of whom became their confessor,” while “Mary became a third order Carmelite.”