With the exception of a small collection of writings accomplished at an early age, partly from which Alfonso Reyes would acquire his literary acumen, the distinguished writer?s literary and humanistic works were written over a fifty-year period, beginning in 1910, when he published his first book, Cuestiones estéticas [´Aesthetic Queries´] and ending in late 1959, the year he past away. Throughout that half century, Reyes? literary production never followed what could be called neither a natural curve of growth, peak, and decline, nor sudden changes in focus, he always maintained the same spiritual style and fundamental interests that had already been apparent in his first book and first writings. He also balanced work and rest at the right moments, as though he were fulfilling a preconceived plan, and external circumstances only further contributed to improve his achievements. Generally speaking, over the course of fifty years, I believe that there are two periods of intense intellectual work followed by other periods of relaxation and digression, on the one hand, and research and compilation, on the other.