SOURCE: “Self Realization in the Leyendas of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer,” in Revista Hispanica Moderna, Vol. 44, No. 2, 1991, pp. 191-206.

In the following essay, Baker examines Bécquer's Leyendas in the context of Jungian philosophy, focusing specifically on the functioning of the subconscious in the process of creation.

There is ample evidence that Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer was greatly affected by his unconscious fantasies. In the “Introducción” to his Libro de los gorriones he refers to “este otro mundo que llevo dentro de la cabeza,”¹ and in “Hojas Secas” he describes a trance-like state when his spirit explores the workings of this mysterious inner world (642). In “Rima LXXV” he tells us that the mind continues to be active when the body sleeps, and Kessel Schwartz has observed that in the moment just before going to sleep Bécquer experienced what modern psychology calls “hypnagogic manifestations” that have their...