Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1966 The 'Heroe Fracasado' in the Novels of Unamuno, Baroja and Azorin. Janice Donnell Glascock Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Glascock, Janice Donnell, "The 'Heroe Fracasado' in the Novels of Unamuno, Baroja and Azorin." (1966). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 1151. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/1151 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This dissertation has been microiilmed exactly as received 66-10,901 GLASCOCK, Janice Donnell, 1922- THE HEROE FRACASADO IN THE NOVELS OF UNAMUNO, BAROJA AND AZOIlfN. Louisiana State University, Ph.D., 1966 Language and Literature, modern University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan THE HSROS FRACAS ADO IN THE NOVELS OF UNAMUNO, BARCJA AND AZORlN A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Foreign Languages by Janice Donnell Glascock M.A., Louisiana State University, 1962 May, 1966 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The writer wishes to express her gratitude to Dr. Harry L. Kirby for directing this dissertation. She also wishes to thank Dr, John A. Thompson, Dr. Elliott D. Healy, Mr. Wyatt A. Pickens, Dr. Walter Borenstein and Dr. Carl Berreckman for consultation and help which they gave while she was writing. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Title Page .............................................. i Acknowledgement .......................................... ii Table of C o n t e n t s .............................. iii A b s t r a c t ..................... iv Introduction .............................................. 1 Chapter I, Azorln .................................. 18 Chapter II, Baroja........................................ 82 Chapter III, Unamuno...................................... 130 Conclusion............................................... l8l Bibliography ............................................ 186 V i t a .............................................. 192 iii ABSTRACT Whereas Unamuno's preoccupation with being as an existential thinker has been established for quite some time, the rationale of this study is an attempt to widen the perspectives from which Azorln and Baroja are customarily viewed so as to include them in this same category. Comparative biographical information reveals that following a period of severe personal crisis early in his career, all three men wrote using the Bildungsroman genre, i.e., the novel of education «> wherein the author pursues both philosophical and practical answers to the questions "Who am I?" and "What shall I do with my life?" The center of interest in these novels is the heroe fracasado, who is defined as being synonymous with the existentialist hero of twentieth century literature because of their similar involvement in the existential "manoeuvre." That is, being a person who is unable to understand human existence in either scientific or idealistic terms, he comes to realize phenomenologically, through the stress of an intensely painful, spontaneous and subjective occurrence, his freedom to make definitive and decisive choices regarding his future for which he must be responsible in a contingent and seemingly purposeless world. This consciousness of constituting his essence through his existence is what distinguishes the heroe fracasado from the fracasado who is not similarily self-conscious. iv Azorln's trilogy, La voluntad, Antonio Azorin and Las confesiones de un pequeno filSsofo, is analyzed in detail as illustrating this process.;! The character Antonio Azorln goes from an inauthentic to an authentic existence through recognizing the possible use of his imagination as an exercise in freedom and choice, and his willed determination to do so. With the exception of Roberto Hastings in the La lucha por la vida trilogy, Baroja's heroe fracasado projects himself directly toward his goal from his spontaneity by means of his passion or instinct. This method of executing the existential "manoeuvre1,1 while more mysterious, is shown to be equally as effective as when an announcement of will places the "manoeuvre" in the category of the problematic. Unamuno's heroe fracasado. like Baroja's and Azorln's, suffers a sensation of the nothingness of life. However, he undergoes this realization specifically through an anticipatory sensation of the nothingness of death. This is the tragic sense of life which Unamuno used as the basis for his philosophy of existence and as the criterion for his division of characters. Those lacking this sense are fracasados: those having it are heroes fracasados who may choose to exercise their freedom through either noluntad or voluntad. This study reaches the conclusion that all three writers were vitally concerned with the question of being in an existential manner, as illustrated in their development of the heroe fracasado. INTRODUCTION Although Miguel de Unamuno, Pio Baroja and Azorxn were men of widely divergent temperaments, to group them under the designation 1 "The Generation of '98" has become traditional. This term, is, of course, an application of Jose Ortega y Gasset's method of inter­ preting history, which subsequent scholars have utilized. In brief, Ortega uses fifteen years as the general time limit and he divides man's life into a series of fifteen year periods. He states that the two periods from ages 30 to b3 and k5 to 60 are the ones of influence. From age 30 to b3 a man develops his ideas about life; from age b3 to 60 he historically executes these previously formulated ideas. Thus in any period of history there will be two groups dynamically operative, "una consiste en recibir lo vivido — ideas, valoraciones, instituciones, etc. — por la antecedente; la otra, dejar fluir su 2 propia espontaneidad." The younger group may be intellectually in accord with the older, thus producing "epocas cumulativas," or it may disagree with the older generation, thus bringing about "epocas 3 eliminatorias y polemicas." V.'hat characterizes the spirit of a particular generation is the attitude which the majority of its b individuals takes toward "tiempos de viejos y tiempos de jovenes." The Generation of '98 was decidedly an eooca eliminatoria y ladlemica. To study literature as movements in reaction against earlier literary expression is, of course, a quite common method. If one were to apply this method to the Generation ’writers it would produce the expected drastic contrasts in matters of style, technique or aesthetics of language. In matters of point of view on almost ajiy subject — politics, society, religion — an even more drastic contrast would result. However, as Ortega has said, "...la crltica literaria — cuya misi6n primaria y esencial no es evaluar los meritos de una obra sino definir su caracter— , tiene, a mi juicio, que empezar por aislar ese objeto generico, que viene a ser el 5 elemento donde toda la producciSn alienta." The present study will attempt to follow this precept rather than establish contrasts. The intellectual training of Unamuno, Baroja and Azorin is one of the most striking qualities of these writers. Unamuno was a philologist and a philosopher. He held the chair of Greek at the University of Salamanca. Baroja was a trained physician and a student of philosophy. Azorln studied law and practiced journalism as a profession. They were, therefore, well trained in the use of their minds and the fact that they are .well disciplined in the v/orld of ideas is quite evident in their writings. Nevertheless, in speak­ ing of these men Ortega makes the pertinent observation: "Todos los pensadores y artistas que pueden considerarse come autores de la transicion entre siglo xix y este siglo xx ... han coincidido en la apologia de activismo. A1 intelecto y la contemplaci&n se prefiere 6 ese otro raodo de vida que gra.vita sobre la pasion y la voluntad..." The contemporary Spanish Generation-scholar, Luis S. Granjel, has written very interesting, well documented and sensitive bio­ graphies of Unamuno, Baroja and Azorln which perhaps amplify Ortega's comment. As one reads these biographies one is struck by the fact that early in the lives of these three men each passed through a period of extreme personal crisis. In each case, of course, the crisis was for a different reason, which emerged from the particular temperament of the man involved. Unamuno's problem was religious in nature, Baroja's was the problem of finding his place in the world, and Azorln's seems to have been largely of an emotional character. Following this crisis in their lives, however, all three men begem writing withaa renewed intensity. They chose to use a particular form of fiction known as the Bildungsroman. This genre has been defined as the novel of education, that is, fictional biography centered oh the hero's formation of and reaction to ideas about life v/hich result from his experience. Colin Wilson calls it "A sort of laboratory in which the hero conducts an experiment in living," and goes on to say, "For this reason, it