María Zambrano and Unamuno’s anti-scholarly legacy: (dis) continuities of Don Quixote as Sphinx

Abstract

Against the scholarly tradition of the late nineteenth century, the symbolic readings of Don Quijote show the idea of that book as a figure of a genuine Spanish philosophy. Unamuno’s contribution was not only central to the vindication of an anti-rationalist way of valuing the canon, but also gave his successors a metaphorical framework capable of relating the novel to Spain itself and to the myth of the Sphinx. In this way, Zambrano picked up that link between the book, the nation and the myth, and proposed an overcoming personal philosophy.