When I used to teach existentialismUnamuno is an early existentialiststudents complained that it was both tragic and depressing. Both convey a (seeming) lostness regarding our place in an indifferent cosmos. There are undoubtedly echoes of philosophers such as the French thinker Pascal and the Danish thinker Kierkegaard in the existential angst conveyed by this essay, but the ideological basis owes as much to the Bilbao-born author's knowledge of the Bible, the Spanish mystics –particularly Saint Teresa–, the Jesuit Saint Ignatius of Loyola, and Protestant thought and theology. Unamuno’s sublime description of the tragic sense of life is reminiscent of the sentiments of Blaise Pascal. The acknowledged masterpiece of one of Spains most influential thinkers. Between despair and the desire for something better, Unamuno finds that saving. This essay corresponds to the preoccupation with the existential problems of contemporary man, which was so much in vogue with the European schools of philosophical thought –particularly existentialism– of that time. Read Tragic Sense of Life by Miguel de Unamuno available from Rakuten Kobo. This is the masterpiece of Miguel de Unamuno, a member of the group of Spanish intellectuals and philosophers known as the Generation of 98, and a writer. The acknowledged masterpiece of one of Spains most influential thinkers.

With this agitated and fervent book, Miguel de Unamuno does not explore what he himself believes, but rather shines the light on what, according to him, man would be best advised to believe in the face of the unavoidable fact of death. Tragedy, in the Unamunian sense, means an agonizing struggle between opposing forces so well matched that no final victory of one over the other is possible.

For numerous specialists, this essay contains the clearest and most comprehensive expression of the philosophical thought of Miguel de Unamuno, one of the most important intellectual figures in Spain before the Spanish Civil War.

Unamuno tragic sense of life