Aspectes de la persona tràgica en Salvador Espriu

Abstract

Partly inspired by Miguel de Unamuno and partly by Ramón del Valle-Inclán, Salvador Espriu (1913-1985), the most important poet of the Catalan Civil War generation, developed his own version of the tragic mode. Throughout Espriu's entire literary work, this mode emerges in the multiple development of the "I/You symbiosis". The "I" represents the author's highest level of consciousness, transformed into the essential epiphany of Espriu's persona; the "You" is the complementary other, linked to the "I" in an indissoluble existential duality. Espriu shows that the "I/You" duality is often of contradicting nature: It explains itself as a dialectic with metaphysical depths and far-reaching ethical and theological implications. Ultimately, Espriu proves that literature in general and theater in particular are a direct projection of what Unamuno would call the "tragic meaning of life." Tragedy – in the various aspects examined by this study – is Espriu's original representation of existence itself.