Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) is widely regarded as Spain's greatest and most controversial writer of the first half of the twentieth century. Professor of Greek, and later Rector, at the University of Salamanca, and a figure with a noted public profile in his day, he wrote a large number of philosophical, political and philological essays, as well as poems, plays and short stories, but it is his highly idiosyncratic novels, for which he coined the word nivola, that have attracted the greatest critical attention. Niebla (Mist, 1914) has become one of the most studied works of Spanish literature, such is the enduring fascination which it has provoked. In this study, C. A. Longhurst, a distinguished Unamuno scholar, sets out to show that behind Unamuno's fictional experiments there lies a coherent and quasi-philosophical concept of the novelesque genre and indeed of writing itself. Ideas about freedom, identity, finality, mutuality and community are closely intertwined with ideas on writing and reading and give rise to a new and highly personal way of conceiving fiction.

Aunt Tula (La tia Tula), published in 1921, is one of the few novels written by Miguel de Unamuno to centre on a female protagonist. It is a vivid, nuanced portrait of the intelligent, wilful and yet vulnerable Tula.

It's a critical cliché that Cervantes' Don Quixote is the first modern novel, but this distinction raises two fundamental questions. First, how does one define a novel? And second, what is the relationship between this genre and understandings of modernity? In Forms of Modernity, Rachel Schmidt examines how seminal theorists and philosophers have wrestled with the status of Cervantes' masterpiece as an 'exemplary novel', in turn contributing to the emergence of key concepts within genre theory. Schmidt's discussion covers the views of well-known thinkers such as Friedrich Schlegel, José Ortega y Gasset, and Mikhail Bakhtin, but also the pivotal contributions of philosophers such as Hermann Cohen and Miguel de Unamuno. These theorists' examinations of Cervantes's fictional knight errant character point to an ever-shifting boundary between the real and the virtual. Drawing from both intellectual and literary history, Forms of Modernity richly explores the development of the categories and theories that we use today to analyze and understand novels.

A central figure of Spanish culture and an author in many genres, Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) is less well known outside Spain. He was a surprising writer and thinker: a professor of Greek who embraced metafiction and modernist methods, a proponent of Castilian Spanish although born in the Basque Country and influenced by many international writers, and an early existentialist who was yet religious. He found himself in opposition to both King Alfonso XIII and the military dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera and then became involved in the political upheaval that led to the Spanish Civil War. Part 1 of this volume, "Materials," gives information on different editions and translations of Unamuno's works, on scholarly and critical secondary sources, and on Web resources. The essays in part 2, "Approaches," offer suggestions for introducing students to the range of his works--novels, essays, poetry, and drama--in Spanish language and literature, comparative literature, religion, and philosophy classrooms.

It's a critical cliché that Cervantes' Don Quixote is the first modern novel, but this distinction raises two fundamental questions. First, how does one define a novel? And second, what is the relationship between this genre and understandings of modernity? In Forms of Modernity, Rachel Schmidt examines how seminal theorists and philosophers have wrestled with the status of Cervantes' masterpiece as an 'exemplary novel', in turn contributing to the emergence of key concepts within genre theory. Schmidt's discussion covers the views of well-known thinkers such as Friedrich Schlegel, José Ortega y Gasset, and Mikhail Bakhtin, but also the pivotal contributions of philosophers such as Hermann Cohen and Miguel de Unamuno. These theorists' examinations of Cervantes's fictional knight errant character point to an ever-shifting boundary between the real and the virtual. Drawing from both intellectual and literary history, Forms of Modernity richly explores the development of the categories and theories that we use today to analyze and understand novels.

Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) is widely regarded as Spain's greatest and most controversial writer of the first half of the twentieth century. Professor of Greek, and later Rector, at the University of Salamanca, and a figure with a noted public profile in his day, he wrote a large number of philosophical, political and philological essays, as well as poems, plays and short stories, but it is his highly idiosyncratic novels, for which he coined the word nivola, that have attracted the greatest critical attention. Niebla (Mist, 1914) has become one of the most studied works of Spanish literature, such is the enduring fascination which it has provoked. In this study, C. A. Longhurst, a distinguished Unamuno scholar, sets out to show that behind Unamuno's fictional experiments there lies a coherent and quasi-philosophical concept of the novelesque genre and indeed of writing itself. Ideas about freedom, identity, finality, mutuality and community are closely intertwined with ideas on writing and reading and give rise to a new and highly personal way of conceiving fiction.