Cervantes through the eyes of Miguel de Unamuno

In the world literature there are works that fully express the spirit of its author that for the reader- the writer is fully identified with his book. This is the case with Miguel de Cervantes and his Don Quixote novel, published in two parts in 1605 and 1615. Even after the release of the first part, the noble idol Don Quixote de la Mancha became so popular that people quickly forgot their creator, and unscrupulous writers struggled to make extensions to the quixotic adventures. Cervantes himself exclaims through the mouth of his story teller Sidé Améte: " For me alone Don Quixote was born and I for him. His was the power of action, mine of writing. Only we two are at one, despite that fictitious and Tordillescan scribe who has dared, and may dare again, to pen the deeds of my valorous knight with his coarse and ill-trimmed ostrich feather.” Cervantes could say about his character - like Florence centuries later - "Don Quixote - that is me."

So, Miguel de Umanuño, the Spanish writer and philosopher who lived from 1864 to 1936, reflects in his essay "The Knight of the Sorrowful Image" about both Don Quixote and Cervantes. For him, the two are a whole, born as if from the Spanish folk fantasy as its most real and most beautiful work. Because Spain has created Cervantes or Cervantes has created Spain - as it exists in the cultural consciousness of the world? According to Unamuno, Don Quixote embodies the "soul of Spain," embodying the tragic sense of life of the Spaniard. Therefore, the appearance of the "knight of the sorrowful image" reflects the soul of the castel - his portrayal is one of the most worthy endeavors for a Spanish artist. And Unnamuno adds that it is not about illustrating Cervantes's immortal work, but to put on a visible and tangible flesh an individual and living spirit, not an abstract idea ... Don Quixote himself reflects in the novel that and the exploits of people can, on the logic path, bring out what their traits, skin color and growth are. For Don Quixote, the correct logic is his, the Castilian; the realism that judges the feats of the features draws from the inside out, centrifugally, following the laws of individual will. This realism made by the giant mills - emphasizes Unnammo - is no less robust than the one made by the great mills - it is no less realistic but no less idealistic...

And so: the artist who wishes to paint Don Quixote according to the correct logic, must infer from his exploits and manners his physical traits, which Side Améte has described as "highly reliable." In order to succeed in this endeavor, the artist must reveal the Soul of Don Quixote, because it is the only way to inspire his wonderful feats and lofty temper and to find through them in his own soul the Don Quixote soul. If he does not want to disfigure Don Quixote, the artist must wear his soul with a "transparent individual body", and that is to create symbolic painting to the extent of the greatest concentration in the image of the human symbol. In order to achieve this, Umanuo argues, the soul of the idalgo from La Mancha must be sought on the immortal pages of Cervantes, but also outside them. And what does that mean? To exist, to act - we read in the essay, - but did not Don Quixote act on the spirits, and did not he act so hard and alive as his predecessors, the wandering knights, acted on his spirit? Here Unnamo comes to the heart of his concept of "khachitism", of the essence of the Spanish character derived from the image of Don Quixote. Unmistakably, it gives a wonderful image to the Spaniard, who takes on the wonderful queen soul! Because of the character of such a pure, holistic and clearly outlined on the background of his environment, such as Don Quixote, he responds to a person who is the purest mirror of his beautiful soul. And this physical beauty must be fully understood by the artist who decides to paint the image - a reflection of his spiritual beauty ... According to Unamuno, Don Quixote should be painted in the light of his own truth and within the well-understood Don Quixote philosophy, with belief in his undeniable real and actual existence, revealing through his soul his physical image. To paint with the faith that inspires the Don Quixote idealism, the source of every true real thing, an idealism that ultimately drives - even against their will - all the Sanchez. By believing that Don Quixote lives and works, as they believed in the lives of saints and angels, those wonderful primitives who have painted them. This, according to Unnammo, is the seemingly pointless and absurd truth of actual and real existence - real, because it is ideal; and indeed because it is influential. This is the truth, the wonderful truth and the life of the Knight of the sad image ...

Miguel de Unamuno created his essay for Don Quixote at a time when Spain's ideas of "the 98th generation" were being established, including writers such as Ramon Maria del Valle Inclan, Pio Barroha, and Assorin. This generation is particularly tragic to the defeat of Spain in the Spanish-American War of 1898; it opposes the historical passivity of its predecessors and seeks to renew the national forces and the Spanish character. In their writings, these writers are trying to get to know and define the Spanish essence, to make it a moral and spiritual model and thus to spanish Europe, but also to "bring Spain back to the world." Ideological support, the "98th generation" draws on the philosophical school of transusism - a Spanish version of the doctrine of the universal spiritual alliance of nations, created by the 19th century German thinker Carl Christian Friedrich Krause. That is why Unamuno attributes such importance to culture and spiritual growth in building the national character. In his essay, "The Knight of the Sorrowful Image," he, in the spirit of Tesus, seeks to resolve the contradiction between "vita activa" and "vita contemplativa," between act and contemplative life. According to Unamunom, it is precisely in the immortal image of Don Quixote that the ideals of the goals and the realism of the action - in all its absurdity and seeming nonsense - are combined in the most beautiful way. Don Quixote's majesty has become an irreplaceable ingredient in the ideas of the cultural peoples of Spain and the Spanish character.

In his famous essay, "Travel by Sea with Don Quixote," Thomas Mann notes that Spain's historic majesty belongs to centuries gone by; nowadays she has to struggle with the difficulties of adaptation. However, I am interested in the difference between what they call the loud "history" and the mental, human side of things. Perhaps self-deception, freedom, and artistically rational attitude to themselves do not make a nation particularly fit to play a historical role; but these are appealing qualities and, after all, the appealing and repulsive also play their part in history. Whatever the pessimist historians say, mankind has a conscience, albeit only aesthetic conscience. In his reflections on the Cervantes novel and the image of Don Quixote Miguel de Unamuno managed to shift the accent from his people's sad historical fate to his spiritual essence and hidden moral talents. It thus contributes to the revival and strengthening of the Spanish national identity.

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