An illuminating collection of Unamuno’s writings on Don Quixote

Miguel de Unamuno was, in the words of a European contemporary, “the living Spaniard of most importance to Europe, and probably the most important Spaniard that has lived since Goya.” An American critic, John A. Mackay, wrote: “In his emphasis on individuality, passion and action, and his supreme contempt of sociology, Unamuno resembles Nietzsche. The prologue to his Life of Don Quixote, in which he sounds a clarion challenge to heroic mystic action, is perhaps the most incandescent piece of prose-writing in contemporary literature.” Fittingly, this volume opens with The Life of Don Quixote and Sancho, first published in 1905. Unamuno called his book “a free and personal exegesis” on Cervantes’s novel, “in which I do not pretend to discover the meaning Cervantes aimed to impart to his work, but only the meaning which I myself give it.” Sixteen essays on diverse aspects of the Quixote motif make up the second part of the volume.