UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Unamuno's late reading of Shakespeare: Civil war and folly

Wood, G; (2013) Unamuno's late reading of Shakespeare: Civil war and folly. Bulletin of Spanish Studies , 90 (6) 971 - 992. 10.1080/14753820.2013.810918. Green open access

[thumbnail of 10.1080-14753820.2013.810918.pdf]
Preview
PDF
10.1080-14753820.2013.810918.pdf

Download (124kB)

Abstract

This article seeks to answer two questions. Firstly, why did Miguel de Unamuno support the Nationlist coup that started the Spanish Civil War? Secondly, how can the re-reading of Shakespeare that he undertook in his final months of life help us to understand his thinking at that time? Based on archival research carried out in the Casa-Museo Unamuno in Salamanca, this article traces the presence of Shakespearean references in Unamuno's final writings—unpublished journalist articles, letters and most importantly El resentimiento trágico de la vida. Through comparisons between the annotations on Unamuno's personal copies of Shakespeare's plays and the references to the bard in his final writings, the article builds a picture of how Unamuno's understanding of the causes of the Civil War were informed by his reflections on Shakespeare's drama. In particular, Unamuno read the King Henry VI plays, as well as King Richard II and King Richard III, plays about fratricidal struggles for power, good governance and atavistic hatred. Unamuno's reading of King Lear and The Tempest, plays in part about old men who rue their failure to wield power judiciously, evidently also provoked reflections on his own role as a public intellectual and contributor to contemporary debate.

Type: Article
Title: Unamuno's late reading of Shakespeare: Civil war and folly
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1080/14753820.2013.810918
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14753820.2013.810918
Language: English
Additional information: © 2013 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The moral rights of the named author(s) have been asserted.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > SELCS
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1300128
Downloads since deposit
326Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item