Abstract
Authors such as Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus popularized the philosophical movement called existentialism in the 1940s, which declared that man had no nature and that, as a result, he was totally free to choose and direct his own course of life. According to this philosophical perspective, the absurdity of existence and the inadequacy of human reason cause despair, anguish and nausea in man. Existentialism, which was fathered by the nineteenth century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, has been associated, in one form or another, with many writers and philosophers, e.g., Jose Ortega y Gasset (EI tema de nuestro tiempo, 1923), Franz Kafka (Der Prozess, 1925), and Martin Heidegger (Sein und Zeit, 1927). But prior to these individuals, Miguel de Unamuno had demonstrated an affinity for kierkegaardian thought and a propensity for existentialism in such works as "La Fe" (1900), "Mi religión" (1907) and Del sentimiento trágico de la vida (1913).
Recommended Citation
Plasencia, Gonzalo
(1979)
"The Ludic Element in Unamuno's Thought,"
University of Dayton Review: Vol. 13:
No.
3, Article 8.
Available at:
https://ecommons.udayton.edu/udr/vol13/iss3/8
