The Broken Mirror: Reflections of Nietzsche in Unamunian Views of Art and the Imagination

Abstract

A long with Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich has long been reckoned among the most predominant of philosophical influences on the Spanish Generation of 1898. This view bas been supported by critics (Pedro Ribas, Gonzalo Sobejano, Iris Zavala) and generational members (Juan Martinez Ruiz, Ramiro de Maeztu) alike. As Miguel de can reasonably be said to have formed part of this literary generation, one might expect to find huellas of the Nietzschean influence in his texts. Indeed, there is significant evidence of affinity between the two on matters such as, but not limited to, the rejection of systematic thought, the necessity of opposites, the concern for immortality, the value of the individual, and the existential importance of art. It is when one begins to consider the author's comments regarding his estimation of and familiarity with Nietzschean philosophy, however, that troubling incongruities in the Unamuno-Nietzsche relationship arise. First, despite clear, early references to the latter in personal correspondence (1) and professional publications, (2) repeatedly insists he only became aware of in 1898 and then only through Lichtenberger's exposition of his thought. But, as Ribas affirms in his Unamuno y such accounts simply cannot be sustained in the face of contrary evidence: [Y]a que hemos visto referencias a antes de 1898, hay que concluir que, o bien lo conocfa muy indirectamente, o bien lo habia leido en aleman (253-54). Second, there is the baffling manner in which attacks Nietzsche, many times with regard to a position that the two hold in common (e.g., the idea of eternal repetition). Iris Zavala writes of this sort of phenomenon in Unamuno: palabra a dos voces: Unamuno se complace en un juego de rechazo y aceptacion, o de asimilacion y de polemica, de dependencia e interdependencia--su dialogo con es buen ejemplo de independencia que resulta en las situaciones y entonaciones distintas (46). And Sobejano echoes, in his en Espana: Consiste el problema en que, frente a indicios evidentes de la influencia de en el escritor espanol, existen una serie de testimonios de este afirmando [...] su tardla y menguada ocupacion con las obras de aquel y su antipatia hacia Nietzsche (276-77). The purpose of this study, then, is to continue to question--much as Zavala, Sobejano, and others have already done--the validity and logic of Unamuno's expressions of antipathy toward his German contemporary. Our strategy for doing sois a detailed comparison of the thinkers' respective aesthetic theories. First among concerns is the like manner in which and charge art with a task of existential importance: that of promoting the eternal affirmation of life. Other coincidences studied are the shared view of the individual as his or her own artistic creation, the mutual stressing of imagination over reason, and the role of both thinkers as artist-philosophers. We conclude by noting that--rather than being attributable to mere coincidence--the many similarities between and on the subject of art reveal a much deeper relation: their common experience of and participation in the Weltanschauung of modernism. While it is most certainly not our purpose to paint and as holding identical views, we do endeavor to demonstrate by study's end: (1) the existence of important affinities that tend to get lost in the presence of our author's persistent criticism of Nietzsche; and (2) the greater historical and intellectual significance of these affinities. Unamuno, Nietzsche, and Art's Affirmation of Eternal Existence One of the more dramatic manners in which and coincide is in their understanding of art's ultimate purpose. Above all, both view the creative and imaginative endeavor as a life-affirming enterprise. …