The nivolas de Miguel de Unamuno generally place little importance on locale and geography. Rather, they emphasize the spiritual and psychological agony of the characters.¹ Accordingly, we observe in these works a notable paucity of place names and topographical references. Consequently, our interest is aroused when we do encounter the names of places, especially those invented by the author himself, as is the case with Peña del Buitre, the mountain, and Valverde de Lucerna, the village, in San Manuel Bueno, mártir. Much of a convincing nature has been written about the possible symbolism of the characters' names in this nivola.² If the choice of these was not casual, the same might easily be true of the aforementioned geographical designations. Our purpose is to determine the significance of these two names and how they may be related to Unamuno's philosophy.

Some elucidation may be gained concerning the Peña del Buitre, Vulture Peak, from Unamuno's Rosario de sonetos líricos and his Poesías.³ The former contains a poem, Sonnet LXXXVI, significantly entitled “A mi buitre,” which reads as follows:

          Este buitre voraz de ceño torvo
que me devora las entrañas fiero
y es mi único costante compañero
labra mis penas con su pico corvo.
          El día en que le toque el postrer sorbo
apurar de mi negra sangre, quiero
que me dejéis con él solo y señero
un momento, sin nadie como estorbo.
          Pues quiero, triunfo haciendo mi agonía
mientras él mi último despojo traga,
sorprender en sus ojos la sombría
          mirada al ver la suerte que le amaga
sin esta presa en que satisfacía
el hambre atroz que nunca se le apaga.

In this sonnet the poet depicts himself mercilessly tortured by a vulture which consumes his entrails. He asks only that he witness, at the moment of his death, a final triumph over the pecking bird when it realizes it will no longer be able to satiate itself with his blood. Here there appears a clear allusion to the classical myth of Prometheus, in which the protagonist, a god himself, steals the heavenly fire and surreptitiously passes it on to man. For this crime he is punished by Zeus, who has him chained to a rock and tortured for ten thousand years. Throughout the centuries Prometheus is preyed upon by the eagle of Zeus, which pecks away at his exposed liver. Periodically that organ is regenerated only to be devoured again by the predatory bird.⁴

If the reference in Unamuno's sonnet is to the Promethean theme, the same could possibly be true with the name of the Peña del Buitre. Nevertheless, in both cases the symbolism requires clarification. For example, what does the vulture represent, and what is it that he is devouring? The answer to these questions may lie in the dichotomy which constitutes the basis of Unamuno's religious agony, i.e., the struggle between faith and reason, which are viewed by him as mutually antagonistic. Faith is fundamentally positive and creative: “La fe es, pues, si no potencia creativa, flor de voluntad, y su oficio crear. La fe crea, en cierto modo, su objeto.”⁵ Nevertheless, faith's creations are subjected to the scrutiny of analytical reason, which contradicts, denies, and destroys them. Hence, reason and intellect are often referred to by the author as negative, destructive. For example, in Sonnet LXX of the Rosario, entitled “Mal de pensar,” thought is a tribulation: “Dios nos dió el pensamiento como prueba, / ¡dichoso quien no sabe que le lleva!” Poem LXXVI speaks of the intellect as the “losa del pensamiento,” and Sonnet C equates reason with “nuestro tormento.”

In the light of this antagonistic relationship, the symbolism of the vulture and the entrails becomes clear. The bird of torment is equivalent to the destructive force of reason. It seems no mere coincidence that, in the Promethean story, the fire given to man endows him with intellect and the skills of technology and science. Moreover, in Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound the mental processes of the protagonist are expressed “in terms of analytical power, of calculation, of counseling, of scientific discovery.”⁶ It is the granting of the light of reason which becomes both the cause of the castigation of Prometheus and of the religious torment of Unamuno. In the Poesías we find an extensive poem entitled “El buitre de Prometeo,” in which the poet addresses the vulture with the proper noun “Pensamiento” and exclaims, “Pensar es mi castigo.”⁷

The intestines, then, may represent faith, which is consumed, as it were, by the process of logic. Once destroyed, the beliefs wrought by faith are re-created, regenerated, as was the case with Prometheus' liver: “Debemos edificar constantemente por la fe lo que constantemente por la razón destruimos.”⁸ For Unamuno, religious belief is an unending cyclical process of creation, destruction, and re-creation. The regenerative nature of faith would be what Shelley would describe as “… to hope till Hope creates / from its own wreck the thing it contemplates.”⁹

The relationship between faith and reason is not only antagonistic ; it is also symbiotic, for the two are mutually dependent: “Razón y fe son dos enemigos que no pueden sostenerse el uno sin el otro. Lo irracional pide ser racionalizado, y la razón sólo puede operar sobre lo irracional. Tienen que apoyarse uno en otro y asociarse. Pero asociarse en lucha, ya que la lucha es un modo de asociación.”¹⁰ For man to be spiritually vital, for him to have true existential substance, he must participate, without respite, in this on-going conflict between faith and reason. Therefore, Unamuno is unwilling to relinquish his intellectual capacity merely to achieve peace of mind. He seeks religious truth not only through faith but also through logical verification: “No puedo transigir con aquello del Inconocible—o Incognoscible, como escriben los pedantes—, ni con aquello otro de ‘de aquí no pasarás.’ Rechazo el eterno ignorabimus. Y en todo caso quiero trepar a lo inaccesible.”¹¹ He chooses the suffering implicit in the struggle between faith and reason rather than the bland spiritual tranquility proffered by faith alone: “Existir, existir, pensar sufriendo / más bien que no dormir, libre de penas. …”¹²

If in “A mi buitre” the vulture is emblematic of the “mal de pensar,” the “losa del pensamiento,” reason and intelligence, “nuestro tormento,” then the heavenly gift of fire, once bestowed, turns against man and becomes the instrument of his spiritual torment, his “buitre.” Unamuno sees himself both as man, the recipient of the light, and as the persecuted Prometheus. On the basis of the foregoing, may we not legitimately assume that this same symbolism possibly lies behind the name applied to the mountain in San Manuel Bueno, mártir, especially since it typifies the religious dilemma of don Manuel, the tormented priest?

The name of the village of Valverde de Lucerna, on the other hand, represents quite the contrary. The “val” of Valverde is clearly an apocape of “valle.” “Lucerna” is equivalent to “lumbrera,” a lamp, a light. Consequently, “Valverde de Lucerna” may be rendered as “Valle Verde de la Luz.” This Green Valley of Light is an Eden-like paradise so far as the blind faith of the aldeanos is concerned. Contrary to the Promethean theme, the possessors of the light are, ironically, those bereft of all but minimal intelligence, as is Blasillo, the bobo. Their light is distinct from the Promethean light of reason, for it is the light of faith which makes Valverde de Lucerna the religious Eden which first it appears to be. Nevertheless, something is wrong in this seeming paradise. Since, for Unamuno, faith versus reason = true spiritual existence, the villagers, by denying one element of the equation, reason or intelligent inquiry concerning their faith, are not “agonistas” in the Unamunian sense. Therefore, they lack spiritual essence.

Our analysis of these two symbolic place names has led us to the very heart of Unamuno's spiritual preoccupation. They represent two ways of approaching religion: the way of Valverde de Lucerna, which, because it is incomplete, leads to a false Eden, an illusory state of beatitude, a “consuelo de engaño” (Rosario, Sonnet XXXIX) ; and the way of the Peña del Buitre, the way of don Manuel, of Lázaro, and of don Miguel, which, although it leads to Promethean torment, is based on the essentially contradictory nature of the human spirit.

Notes

1. Miguel de Unamuno, “Prólogo,” Andanzas y visiones españolas in Obras completas, ed., Manuel García Blanco, 8 vols. (Madrid: Escelicer, 1965-69), I, 345.

2. James R. Stamm and Herbert E. Isar, “Introduction,” Unamuno: Dos novelas cortas (Lexington, Mass.: Xerox College Publishing, 1961).

3. All references to the Rosario de sonetos lírico will be cited in the text by sonnet number and may be found in Obras completas, VI, 333-414.

4. The principal Greek sources of this legend are Hesiod's Theogony and Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus.

5. Unamuno, Del sentimiento trágico de la vida in Obras completas, VII, 223.

6. E. A. Havelock, The Crucifixion of Intellectual Man (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1951), p. 86.

7. Unamuno, Obras completas, VI, 237.

8. Miguel Oromí, El pensamiento filosófico de Miguel de Unamuno (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1943), p. 151.

9. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound in Complete Works, eds., Roger Ingpen and Walter E. Peck, 10 vols. (New York: Gordian Press, 1965), II, Act IV, lines 573-574.

10. Unamuno, Del sentimiento trágico in Obras completas, VII, 175.

11. Unamuno, Mi religión y otros ensayos in Obras completas, III, 260.

12. Unamuno, “El buitre de Prometeo,” Poesías in Obras completas, VI, 237.