The Poetic World of Miguel De Unamuno

The Basque philosopher Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) was viewed by his peers as being one of the most significant writers and thinkers of the twentieth-century. As an author, Unamuno worked in all of the major literary genres: essays, novels, poetry and plays. However, according to the Mexican novelist and essayist, Carlos Fuentes, it was the philosophical essay which was his real forte. Yet Unamuno, towards the end of his life, provided a different—though not necessarily contradictory—perspective on his work. When Unamuno was asked to define himself, he stated that in all of his writings he should be considered “nothing but a poet.” Taking each of these statements both literally and seriously, what Professor Wasserman attempted to do in this work was to integrate the two assertions. He accomplished this task by first translating passages in Unamuno’s essays from Spanish to English and then by converting the prose translations into lines of poetry, thereby providing the reader with a lyrical and engaging picture of Unamuno’s philosophy of life.