As early as the 1950s Unamuno's work influenced Spanish poets such as José Hierro, Rafael Morales, and José Luis Hidalgo, who preferred simple concepts and colloquial turns of phrase to stylized refinements or exalted emotion. Unamuno was not in love with words, he used them as means to search for truth.
Born on Saint Michael's day of 1864 in Bilbao, Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo spent most of his first thirty years in that progressive, commercial city. During those years Bilbao enjoyed a growing prosperity and had a liberal, outward-looking atmosphere, both due to the rapid expansion of Basque banking and the export of Biscayan iron ore. Unamuno's father, Félix, who died when Unamuno was six, had been overseas and returned prosperous; he spoke foreign languages and collected a small library of history, philosophy, and science. Unamuno's mother, Salomé Jugo, exemplified Basque tradition in her deep Catholic piety and the strict upbringing she gave her children. This contrast of one social ethos with another played a part in Unamuno's first adolescent crisis, when his urge to become a priest was checked by his love for his childhood sweetheart, Concepción (Concha) Lizárraga.
This is a free page. This page contains 188 words. This
biography contains 5,636 words (approx. 19 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our Miguel de Unamuno (y Jugo) Access Pass.
