"Miguel de Unamuno and the Redemption of Antero de Quental"

ABSTRACT: My analysis in this paper centers on Miguel de Unamuno's multifaceted engagement (commentary, translation, poetic response) with Antero de Quental's metaphysically-inclined sonnets. Like Unamuno, I focus on the sonnets "Redenção" and "Na mão de Deus." I first demonstrate how Unamuno unsuccessfully attempts to reconcile Quental's poetic descriptions of death as liberation, and of the individual's reabsorption in death into the universal consciousness, with his agonized faith in a personal God and his New Testament-derived belief in humanity's redemption from sin and salvation by Jesus Christ. I then argue that while Unamuno may have misinterpreted Quental, his misreading was nonetheless productive in that it furnished him with an Iberian exemplar of the sentimientotrágico de la vida – though I contend that Unamuno's elevation of Quental to the status of tragic exemplar is nonetheless misplaced