Unamuno, Schleiermacher, Humboldt: A Question of Language

Abstract

In Unamuno criticism there has been an irresistible temptation to see him as a precursor of some of the later twentieth-century developments in linguistics and literary theory. But a comparison of his ideas on language with those of certain nineteenth-century linguistic philosophers, with whom he was acquainted through his early philological training, shows that his ideas are reworkings of early-nineteenth-century thinkers. Two in particular, Friedrich Schleiermacher and Wilhelm von Humboldt, appear to have exercised a shaping and lasting influence on Unamuno’s ideas on language, which he formulated throughout his life. This article considers how Unamuno came across these two thinkers, and compares his and their ideas on language and thought, language and person, language and nation, and language and creativity.