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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Nietzsche and Unamuno: Connections and Differences
Maria Rodriguez Garcia
University Pablo Olavide, Seville, Spain.
Abstract
This article tries to show the similarities and differences between the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche and Miguel de Unanmuno. For this we refer mainly to the role of Nietzsche's superman and how it is present in the Spanish thinking of the early twentieth century through the work of Miguel de Unamuno.
Keywords: Philosophy, Friedrich Nietzsche, Miguel de Unamuno, Metaphysic, Literature.
Introduction
The last puffs of the 19th century were the germ of the approach of the work of Nietzsche to our country, which remained sad by the traces of the at present known like Crisis of the 98 [1] like historical event that would seat the bases of what would be the imminent 20th century. According to Gonzalo Sobejano in his work Nietzsche in Spain [2], the approach of the authors of the 98 to the work of Nietzsche was mediated by Paul Schmitz, writer and Swiss his pianist that came to Spain in 1899 to remedy an ailment of breast to the coat of the climate and the Hispanic habits. Fellow of the brothers Baroja, Schmitz gave cool air to the version that then accompanied the vision of Nietzsche. If this was judged by Baroja like violent and with rancor, now became ironic and scathing to the pair that sensitive with his time.
Schmitz remained three years in our country, sufficient time to transmit his knowledge of the work of Nietzsche as well as to bequeath the translations of his works to the atmosphere of literature of the period.
From among the authors of the Generation of the 98 above-mentioned, the influence of Nietzsche in Miguel of Unamuno was of special importance, although, and as it collects Sobejano, the Basque thinker commissioned to deny in more than an occasion that his work was impregnated by the echoes of the German philosopher. Said
negative and the contrast with his writings situate us in a problematic position, as they are not few the references found by the studious of an influence (more or less imperfect) of the thought nietzschean in the works of the Spanish thinker. Special attention deserves in this point Así hablaba Zaratustra, whose exaltation of the superman and of the eternal return was fundamental in the primes of the Spanish 20th century and, specifically, in the writings unamunianos of these years.
The present work presents like a proposal of study of the influence of the Zaratustra of Nietzsche in a fundamental text of Unamuno published in the first polish of the 20th century: Amor y pedagogía of 1902. Said text supposes a tragic exaltation of a new man that, in spite of the destiny of the period, has to face his time like nobleman solitary that preaches in the desert. From the study proposed, pretends deepen in the self-evident influence that Nietzsche exerted in the early work of Unamuno, in spite of the refusal of this in this regard. In this way, we will expose one of the main theoretical edges that endorse the confluence between the philosophy Spanish and the European to beginnings of the 20th century and after the failure of the modern reason.
the mountain by part of the prophet, the one who after ten years of meditation and solitude considers timely and necessary descend of his cavern and direct to the village to preach his message. Before his game, Zaratustra devotes some words in the sunlight,that patiently has lit him each morning during his retreat:
But low and behold that I have me tired of my knowledge, like the bee that has elaborated excessive honey. Now I need hands that tend me. It wanted to give and distribute until the wise persons between the men again are with pleasure of his madness, and the poor, joyous of his wealth. Therefore I have to descend to the depths as you do it you in the afternoon when you sink you behind the seas to carry your light just across the world, oh star brilliant! [3].
From the beginning, Nietzsche shows us to Zaratustra like the prophet commissioned to heave his voice against the decadence reached by the humanity. The concept of “decadence” is the key in the configuration of the European culture of finals of the 19th century. After the failure of the modern reason and of the liberal revolutions situate us in front of an ill consciousness that neutralizes the therapeutic effects that, until then, had all liberating story [4]. Zaratustra proposes us a man that little has to see with the model designed by the philosophy of Schopenhauer, another big German thinker of the drank the intellectuals of the 98 and, therefore, Miguel of Unamuno. The diffusion of the ideas of Nietzsche in the old continent as well as in Spain was not a too complex task, as already Schopenhauer had commissioned of level the terrain for this.
If Schopenhauer showed us a man ascetic and able of bear the suffering and the tedium until the point to cancel his will with the object to reach the true knowledge of yes, Nietzsche presents us to Zaratustra, an evocation of Zoroastro, Persian prophet of the 12th century B.C. That plays with the meanings and holy identifications between the good and the bad. Dreamy, sometimes unsuspecting and other cruel and ironic, Zaratustra pretends to give a turn of nut to the modern decadence by means of the presentation of the superman.
The man is a rope tended between the animal and the superman; a rope tended on the abyss. It is dangerous to happen to another side, dangerous remain on the way, dangerous look to backwards; dangerous stop and dangerous shiver. The greatness of the man is in being a bridge and no an end; what there is in him worthy to be loved is the being a traffic and a twilight [5].
Zaratustra Does not choose the best of the moments for the presentation of the superman. Whereas the men of the village remain in the square expecting see the number of a tightrope walker, the prophet takes advantage of for publish his good new, something that will involve the mockery of the there gathered that they only aspire to happen a good while of entertainment. This fact supposes a big education for Zaratustra, the one who comprises that his message, avid an introduction metaphysical, has to look for other mates, friends and disciples that escape of the charmed crowd.
In Schopenhauer like educator [6], Nietzsche exposes the will of the superman, which enciphers in a personal sense like the meeting with himself, the own himself same to the have to be faithful and that is above us.
The proposal of Nietzsche is collected by the authors of the generation of the 98, those who proposed a renewal of the novel and of the philosophy of his time further of the realistic mimesis. From among the authors of said generation, Miguel of Unamuno was one of which more leave imbue by the sparkles of the charmed of Zaratustra, in spite of denying it in no few occasions.
In constant dialogue with his I more problematic and tragic, the Basque thinker enters us in a problematic spiritual sphere in which the man shows like a be ill, to horse between the life and the reason. His illness, that is not another that the possession of consciousness, is what carries him to conceive the existence. This vital question remains at the bottom of the work of Unamuno, being evident in the texts that collect in this work: Amor y pedagogía and Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho.
Influences and Contrasts
In his excellent study on the influence of Nietzsche in Spain [9], Gonzalo Sobejano traces an exhaustive route by the presence of the German thinker in the works of the generations of intellectuals, taking like period of studies the years passed between 1890 and 1936. In the section devoted to Miguel of Unamuno, Sobejano collects the problematic influence that had the German philosopher on our author. Like sample of this, can do allusion to Joaquín Sorel, student of Unamuno in Salamanca that collects the most evident similarities between his mentor and the German thinker. Other intellectuals, as Julio Cejador, considered to Unamuno a mere imitator of Nietzsche and of Oscar Wilde, opinion that does not share José M. Salaverría, for the one who Unamuno avenges of Nietzsche attacking his ideas when checking that it cannot equalizes to him.
In spite of these premature criticisms, are not few the theorists of the work of the Basque thinker that collect the influence of Nietzsche in his work, parallelisms that Sobejano collects patiently at the end of the epigraph devoted to Unamuno, where compares texts of both authors to leave proof of the similarities regarding the thought, the vocabulary and the intention.
In 1896, when still Nietzsche was not an author that was very present in the Spanish ideology, Unamuno publishes an essay on the regeneration of the Spanish theatre in which, according to Sobejano, appoints for the first time to Nietzsche. The fragment, collected in the essay of the Spanish professor, is the following:
When the work in strength of differentiation remitted to the field and to the instruments and useful do bearable and more productive, when they work themachines, savings of intelligence, and remain to the man, once fulfilled his work director, strength and time to integrate and live human life, super human effort rather, then the art will be saint holocaust (…) will be the age of the on-man, of the Übermensch , with that between so much slag of selfish dreams, dreamed the poor Nietzsche; the age of the triumph, no of the grossest neither of the smartest, but of the more men, of which carry in his breast more humanity, more common substance, of the best [10].
According to Sobejano, the characterization that carries out Unamuno of Nietzsche like “the poor” does not have a sense of superiority what of commiseration with regard to his anxiety and torment. In any case, detect already the presence of the ideal of the superman in Unamuno, a contemplation that will be evident in the two works of the Basque thinker that take like reference in this work.
To the equal that him happens to Zaratustra, Unamuno longs for the overcoming of the tradition and make the effort for finding an ideal to be Spanish that escape to the destiny problematic of his time. It is the ideal of the noble man, that surpasses the limitations of the man of meat and bone that, to half way between the monkey and the superman, aspires to know who is and who wants to be.
Amory Pedagogia or the Future of
Love
The emergency of the novels of 1902 produces in a moment historical complex. Like consequence of the crisis of the 98, Spain goes in a loop of apathy, impotence and unease that was distant a lot of the air triumphal that predominated during the War of Cuba. The pretences of the Spanish village (influenced by the victorious speeches of the press of the period), saw truncated when the reality imposed to the daydream.
In this problematic frame, to the fact already have referred us previously, arises Amor y pedagogía, of Miguel of Unamuno. To the equal that the others three works that conform the Spanish essential novels published in this date, Unamuno carries out a critical exercise that reports the absence of will and reaction of the men of his period.
Avito Carrascal, father of Apolodoro, pretends to remedy the tragic reality and he talks about his effort creator and his will in his son. For this, Avito has a vital plan that will contribute to the education of the genius. Only by means of the reason, seems to say us Avito, can put remedy and face up to the problematic reality of our time. It is thus by what, splitting of the logic of the pedagogical science, Avito pretends to build all a pedagogical system based in the reason and, therefore, in the command of the instincts. Everything is perfectly structured, but the life imposes, and the principles promulgated by Apolodoro go in constant conflict with the irrational dimension of his son.
The reaction of the father shows centred in the will of reason and command of the real, something that self-evident, for example, in the research of the suitable woman to carry out a marriage deductivo, as this woman goes to be the mother of the genius and the plan for this has to be perfectly care and thought from the gestation. This example offers us a sample of how Avito is a clear representation of the will of science, a will that moves away of proclaims it vitalist of Zaratustra, nearer to the ideology of Apolodoro. These two models of action involve the apparition of a vital conflict that can encipher like a tragic experience of the
life. Like this it manifests it Fulgencio Entrambosmares, philosopher tutor of the future genius, Apolodoro: This is a tragicomedy, fellow Avito. We represent each one our paper; they throw us of the threads when we believe to act, not being this act more than an activate; we recite the paper learnt there, in the dark of the unconsciousness, in our dark pre-existence [11].
The idea that late background in the words of Fulgencio is the life like tragedy, an essential question so much in the history of Avito and Apolodoro as in proclaim them of Zaratustra. In this point, can allude to Terry Eagleton and his Sweet essay violence: the idea of the tragic [12], where the author speaks us of a novel that characterizes by the profusion of tragic elements that show the essence of the man: his internal duality, his problems and be contingent that does him face his vital time like a load that escapes to the control and the definition of the modern times. This tragic essence remains explicitly self-evident in the characters of Amory pedagogía like paradigms of fight in pro of a stray identity.
Apolodoro is conscious of the tragedy in what they go in conflict his wishes with the rational interests of his father. The son, far to be a methodical genius, shows a love by the life until the limit, even, of his own death, a passion uncontrollable that remembers to the impetus of Zaratustra and to his proclaims of the voluntary death.
They die many too late and some die too prompt. “Die to time!” it is a doctrine that still echoes odd in a lot of hearings. Die to time: lo and behold what teach Zaratustra. True is that the one who never lived to time would not know to die to time. That did not be never!: Lo and behold what I would advise to the unnecessary.
Apolodoro shows a similar vital eagerness to the exaltation of Zaratustra. Avito has all a pedagogical system contrived in pro of a rational life for his son, splitting of the character anti-pedagogical of the love. In front of similar plan, manifested in a life full of dogmas and duties, Apolodoro ill of reason and decides commit suicide. The voluntary death imposes like exaltation of the life and like evident sample of the failure of the principles of science of Avito and, consistently, of the ideal rationalistic modern that prevented to be a genius out of the absolute reason.
So much in Zaratustra as in the character of Apolodoro contemplate a fervent will of life in his sense more original: the exaltation of the instincts, of the love and also of the difficulties and the failure situate us in front of an autonomous project of life that does not fear to culminate in the voluntary death like maximum expression.
In the epilogue of Love and pedagogy, Unamuno thinks of the end of his work, that in addition to the suicide of Apolodoro, culminates with the death of Avito in front of the sadness and the failure that feels by the death of his son. The love has triumphed on the pedagogy, although the end of the work does not show the friendliness that, to the use, is used to him concede to the field of the feel. Unamuno says in this regard that
His effective pain, real and painful, goes setting in ideas, and projects to study the suicide to the light of the death of the life and the right to the death of the life and the duty of the death [14].
The death appears in this history like a commitment in front of the life, that, from the voluntary character of the that spoke us Nietzsche, presents like a way to be followed in which we assume the pain and the failure from the peak vital.
The Echoes of Don Quijote Like
Paradigms of Life
You proclaim them of Zaratustra, moved by his free and nonconformist spirit, remit us to the quixotic echoes rescued by Unamuno to beginnings of century. In 1905, and coinciding with the third centenary of the
publication of the first part of Don Quijote de la Mancha, the Basque thinker publishes Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho, an essay that pretends to rescue the vital experience of the noble man like paradigm of vitality creator. The Quijote that draws us Unamuno presents us like a criticism to the modern reason, a Zaratustra that attends to the feeling like place privileged and for exploring. The inclusion of the faithful squire in the title of his essay is a sample of how, Unamuno, looks for to surpass the solitude of the hero that, in search of his own truth (to the equal that him happened to Zaratustra) strolls by the solitary places of Castilla. Following to Ibsen, Unamuno will say that it is crazy the one who is only,
And we have agreed in that a madness any one leaves to be it in what it does collective, in what it is madness of all a village, of all the humankind maybe (…) and you and I agree in that it does lacking to carry to the crowds, carry to the village, carry to our Spanish village, a madness any one, the madness of one any one of his members that was crazy, but crazy for real and not of jokes. Crazy and no silly [15].
The Basque thinker shows his insistent support to the hero that, in spite of what can think, no always is only, as it reiterates in another moment of the work in question:
Set you up, only. All the other solitary will go to your side, although you do not see them. Each will believe to go only, but will form holy batallion: the batallion of the saint and unfinished crusade (…) Are only, much more only of what appear you, and even so you are not but in way of the absolute, of the complex, of the true solitude. The absolute, the complete, the true solitude consists in not being neither even achieve same. And you will not be of complete edges and absolutely only until you do not undress you of you same, to the edge of the tomb. Saint solitude![16].
that accompany him in his stroll. Nevertheless, Zaratustra does not find isolated, as his madness is in way to be a collective madness, something necessary no already only for the village but, as it affirms Unamuno, for all the humankind.
Avito Carrascal also is convinced of his truth, and when doubts in his interior, taking place moments of intimate contradiction that affect to the pedagogy employed for-with his son. Avito is another quixotic archetype that looks for to make his own vision of the reality, although this cost him the own life to his son that, in his eagerness for freeing of the reason, longs for the death, a voluntary death.
Conclusion
The evocations of Zaratustra are presented by Nietzsche like a rejection of the ways thought by the historical tradition-philosophical western. To the equal that did years later Antonio Machado in Juan of Mairena, Zaratustra becomes a species of apocryphal of the German author of the that come up his deeper ideas and rooted. The public of Juan of Mairena, his students- was more inclined to listen to the teacher, as each day attended to class to leave imbue by the educations of a professor that, tirelessly, longed for the cultural transformation of the youngsters. Zaratustra did not have so much luck, although we can refute this fact of the fact that complains the own prophet if we do ours the words of Unamuno on the solitude shared of the that is judged like crazy. And perhaps we have to understand it like this.
To the light of the exposed is not easy to ignore the influence of Nietzsche in Unamuno. In spite of that the Spanish author seemed not showing that this circumstance gave, the true is that the echoes of Nietzsche find presents, as we have wanted to aim, with more concretion, in Love and pedagogy. And it is not adventured said affirmation. The influence of the thought of Nietzsche in the generation of the 98 situates to Unamuno in a historical context-cultural wide that does not limit to the national borders. The crisis of the European modernity influenced notably in
the authors of the generation of the 98, being the work of Nietzsche a creative inducement that promoted to our authors to develop a critical work with his time and his circumstances. The case of Unamuno is special, as we have wanted to show; as it assumes the paper regenerator of the society of his time and proposes us, in Love and pedagogy, the tirades between the reason and the love in a sense of Nietzsche. The triumph of the death is the triumph of the love, as it ascertains the failure of a reason (the modern) that it is overthrown from his own deficiencies.
Zaratustra, paradigm of the metamorphosis of the man, has the same impetus of renovation that the hidalgo that draws us Unamuno in Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho, work to which have alluded to stand out the need of a remake of the parameters of understanding that happens, necessarily, for reconsidering the limits between the reality and the fiction as well as by the creation of new values that escape of the directions of the modernity. Zaratustra And Apolodoro are two hidalgos that, beside Don Quijote, proclaim the will of power like action and creation under a fight fratricide between the inner world and the external world in which it has to lose the common sense, as it warns the master Fulgencio. Perhaps, in the overcoming of the abortive common sense, find one of the necessary keys to resolve the tirade between “love” and “pedagogy” or, if it prefers, between “reason / wisdom” and “love / madness”, as they suggest us Zaratustra and Apolodoro.
1 The known like Crisis of the 98 covers a complex marked period by the War of Cuba and the consistent colonial disaster that did to lose to Spain his historical colonies: Cuba, Puerto Rico and Philippines. In addition to the political shipwreck, economic and social of said circumstance, the before alluded conflict had important cultural consequences. In this point stands out the known like Generation of the 98, that agglutinates to writers, poets, essayists and philosophers of the size of Miguel of Unamuno, Pío Baroja, Ramón of the Valley-Inclán, the brothers Antonio and Manuel Machado and José Martínez Ruiz (Azorín), among others. Said generation insufla a new sense and direction to the philosophy and the literature of the period, something that will be crucial for the coming years and for the forming of new theoretical and speculative frames in accordance with derive them Europeans of the period.
2 Nietzsche en España (1890-1970), Gonzalo Sobejano, Madrid, Gredos, 2004.
3 Así hablaba Zaratustra, Friedrich Nietzsche, introduction of Dolores Castrillo Mirat. Madrid, Edaf, 1996. P. 37.
4 For a better knowledge of the cultural diagnostic of the decadence, recommends the query of Essays of contemporary psychology, of Paul Bourget and Degeneration, of Max Nordau. Both authors show us in his respective works deprive them of the dismemberment modern and his effects in the men of the period. For this centre in the study of the mind of characters racked understanding the character like demonstration of a culture and problematic history.
5 Asi hablaba Zaratustra, Friedrich Nietzsche cit. P. 42.
6 Schopenhauer como educador, Friedrich
Nietzsche, edition of Jacobo Muñoz. Madrid, New Library, 2001.
7 Nietzsche. Biografía de su pensamiento. R. Safranski, trad. Of Raúl Gabás. Barcelona, Fable Tusquets, 2009. Pág. 284.
8 Ibidem.
9 In the epigraph devoted to Unamuno, Sobejano exposes with precision and exhaustiveness the contrasts that the critics of the work of Unamuno have established with regard to the presence in the same of the philosophy of Nietzsche. For a greater knowledge of said influence and the contrasts of the same, recommends to the reader attend to the text of Sobejano.
10 Ibíd. Pág. 282. The text in question belongs to La regeneración del teatro español, in Ensayos, II, pp. 95-96, Madrid 1916-1918, Publications of the Residence of Students, according to the source worked by Sobejano.
11 Amor y pedagogía, Miguel de Unamuno.
Madrid, Alianza, 2008. P. 76.
12 Dulce violencia: la idea de lo trágico, Terry Eagleton, trad. Of Javier Alcoriza and Antonio Lastra. Madrid, Trotta, 2011.
13 Así hablaba Zaratustra, Friedrich Nietzsche, cit. P. 92.
14 Amor y pedagogía, Miguel de Unamuno, cit. P. 173.
15 Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho. Miguel de Unamuno, Madrid, Alianza, 2004. P. 29
16 Ibíd. P. 35-36.
