SOURCE: King, Shirley. “San Manuel Bueno and Unamuno's Reading of Hauptmann.” Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 19, no. 1 (January 1985): 39-54.

“Si quiere usted enviarme algo envíeme de Hauptmann.”¹ When Miguel de Unamuno wrote these words in 1899 in a letter addressed to a friend in Berlin, he was interested in the writings of the German author Gerhart Hauptmann. Thirty-three years later a short novel by Unamuno was published under the title: San Manuel Bueno, mártir, the story of a priest tormented by religious doubt. Was Unamuno aware that in the meantime Gerhart Hauptmann had published a short novel called Der Ketzer von Soana (1919, The Heretic of Soana), about a priest tormented by religious doubt? Can there be some connection between the two?

Various sources have been suggested from which Unamuno might have taken his idea for San Manuel Bueno, mártir, but the German author in question is not among them.² Unamuno's work, in general, is not normally associated with Hauptmann's. In fact, among critical treatises I can find no literary comparison. However, it is not the critics but the author himself who confirms my suspicion of his familiarity with Hauptmann's writings, documented in a series of letters from the 1890's. Unamuno writes:

¿Qué me dice usted de Wildenbruch y qué de Hauptmann? … Me gusta mucho la literatura alemana pero es la otra, Sudermann, Hauptmann, Max Halbe y los antiguos, lo alemán de otra laya.³

There is a resemblance between Der Ketzer von Soana and San Manuel Bueno, mártir which is more than casual and perhaps more than accidental. The strongest similarities between the two works lie not in the plot, but in the underlying philosophy of each author, coupled with various common symbolic elements. These indications lead me to suspect that Unamuno was not only familiar with Hauptmann's novel and its philosophical implications but that he incorporated the ideas of the earlier work into his own and produced a novel which resembles his German contemporary's in more than one respect. The purpose of this study is to analyze the two works and discover just how close that likeness is.

Hauptmann's Der Ketzer von Soana begins with a traveler in the Italian Alps who is attracted by a curious-looking goatherd living at the top of Monte Generoso.⁴ The traveler gains the confidence of this old man who seems to feel compelled to read to his visitor a book which he has written. The old man's tale becomes the basic story of Hauptmann's novel, and the plot is briefly as follows:

A young Priest, Francesco Vela, is assigned to a very small, remote Italian township called Soana located at the base of Monte Generoso. He is a dedicated and religiously single-minded priest who is determined to call all of his townspeople to God. The priest learns, however, that there lives a family at the mountain's peak whose members are not a part of his congregation and are outcast and condemned by the village because the parents of the family's seven children are not man and wife, but brother and sister. Francesco sets about to bring these stray sheep into his fold. When he approaches the family and sees the children he is struck by the beauty of the eldest daughter, and cannot bring himself to accept that she is anything but pure and guiltless. He falls in love with Agata, this product of incest, and is converted to a new way of viewing the world and his existence. When his actions are made public, he is driven from the town, along with the hated family. It becomes obvious to the reader that the goatherd story-teller Ludovico is none other than the ex-priest Francesco, himself.

In Unamuno's San Manuel Bueno [San Manuel Bueno, mártir], don Manuel becomes priest of the village Valverde de Lucerna as a young man and he remains there his entire life.⁵ Action in the work is limited and so the plot is perhaps not as intriguing as that of Der Ketzer. What we see is a slow unfolding of the character of don Manuel, a man who continues to preach to the townspeople something he no longer believes himself. He dies a tortured, unhappy man who never reveals his discontentment to the people he loves.

With this background of the plots of the two stories, the first comparison I would like to make is that of narrative style. The tale of Der Ketzer can be seen from four points of view. The first perspective is that of Francesco, the protagonist of the novel within the novel. Relating Francesco's story is Ludovico, the inner narrator. “The writer” (Herausgeber) or the dramatized author/narrator is the third story-teller and the fourth is of course Hauptmann, the undramatized author.

The four corresponding levels of narration in San Manuel Bueno are those of don Manuel as protagonist, Angela as narrator within narration of the book, Unamuno as dramatized author at the end of the work, and Unamuno as undramatized author.⁶

It is a small but perhaps significant structural detail that in neither work are there chapter divisions or titles, but only wide breaks between paragraphs which signal a change of time or mood.

As previously noted, Hauptmann's shepherd's tale takes place in the very remote (and authentic) village of Soana at the base of Monte Generoso in the Tessin (Italian) canton of Switzerland. Francesco, Hauptmann's priest in Der Ketzer, was born in the Essin province. Similarly don Manuel in Angela's story is a native of Valverde de Lucerna, the remote but legendary village in the mountainous region of Zamora.

The people of Soana hold their priest Francesco in very high regard, in fact they worship him:

… ward er … meist … von Kindern und Weibern umdrangt, die ihm mit wahrer Ehrfurcht die Hand Küssten … Kurtz, der Ruf des jungen Pfarrers Francesco erscholl auch in der Umgegend weit und breit, und er kam sehr bald in den Ruf eines Heiligen.

(pp. 494-95)⁷

With don Manuel, the same:

Todos le queríamos, pero sobre todo los niños … Empezaba el pueblo a olerle la santidad ; se sentía lleno y embriagado de su aroma.

(p. 26)

And so both the atmosphere and rapport of the two towns are points very much in common between the two works.

There are obvious likenesses between the two main characters, Francesco and don Manuel. Their backgrounds, for example, are comparable. In each story a young and religiously very dedicated man becomes parish priest in or near the remote and sparsely populated mountain village of his childhood, where he soon wins the love and trust of every member of the community. From the narrative of Der Ketzer, we learn about the education of the priest Francesco and about his settling in the village of Soana. In the same way we learn of don Manuel's education and the conditions under which he becomes parish priest. The basic psychological similarities between these two characters are their awakening to what they see as the reality of life and death, and the refusal of both of them to accept blindly all teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.

While the similarities between these two protagonists are quite prominent, there are some differences to be considered. They are mainly in the path each priest chooses to follow in dealing with the questions he has about life. Francesco refuses to accept what he considers to be the myth of life after death and worships God as the Creator and Giver of terminal life. His answer to his consuming problem is to escape the bounds of priesthood and gain freedom from pretension. Don Manuel, although just as convinced of man's mortality, does not rejoice in life as does the changed Ludovico, but remains a self-tortured priest-martyr. Don Manuel's answer is perhaps more heroic but much less fulfilling.

In yet another respect the two characters might seem quite different. The herdsman Ludovico is a hermit, living only with his wife and child, far from civilization. Don Manuel, on the other hand, claims to be afraid of solitude. He explains to Angela that he desires human contact and that he was not meant to live alone: “¿Cómo voy a salvar mi alma si no salvo la de mi pueblo?” (p. 34). Pelayo Fernández says don Manuel “se [zambulle] en su pueblo para empaparse de esa fe y robustecer la suya.”⁸ This argument, however, seems incongruent with the character's personality. Perhaps don Manuel is not truthful with Angela when he says that his intention is to save his soul. After all, he does not believe in the Christian heaven. This priest's soul is an Unamunian-Calderonian one which desires to do right on earth, living as if he only dreams his life. To be sure, don Manuel saturates himself in the people of his village, but it is not with the intention of being influenced by their strong belief, and letting it thereby affect his own. He could not have been more deeply convinced of the finality of life. And as for a fear of solitude, he in fact admits to Lázaro that he goes off by himself on long walks beside the lake. If he fears being alone at such times it is only because he is tempted to end his tortured existence. He needs companionship in the village in order to put his torment from his mind, and not because he hopes to become convinced by the town's faith. Don Manuel, living alone with his problem is indeed a hermit inwardly, as Ludovico (the changed Francesco) is so outwardly. Manuel somehow feels the need to confide in Lázaro and Angela, just as Ludovico desires to tell the traveler/narrator in Der Ketzer the story of his life and of his mysterious burden.

Ludovico the heretic is a well-read man and, as a hermit living high on the mountain, he “not unwillingly receives visits from educated people” (p. 11). Don Manuel, on the other hand, scorns the reading of books in his discussion with Angela: “—¡Bah, bah, bah! ¿Y dónde has leído eso, marisabidilla? Todo eso es literatura. No te des demasiado a ella” (p. 35). Is their attitude, then, regarding education a point of contrast between Francesco and don Manuel? That question might be answered by posing another. Is don Manuel uneducated, himself, and has he followed his own advice? Hardly. His schooling was in the seminary (as was Francesco's) where he received praise “por su agudeza mental y su talento y que había rechazado ofertas de brillante carrera eclesiástica” (p. 27). He considers himself much better educated than most of the villagers:

Mira, Lázaro, he asistido a bien morir a pobres aldeanos, ignorantes, analfabetos que apenas se habían salido de la aldea … Sigamos, pues Lázaro … que sueñe éste su vida como el lago sueña el cielo.

(p. 47)

And the discussions don Manuel has with Lázaro are on a philosophical level, a confidence and learning he does not share freely. He does not condemn knowledge. He condemns himself for having gained knowledge. Manuel realizes that as people read and learn and question, they will also begin to ask religious questions and perhaps find out the truth as he knows it and suffer as he does.

This thematic parallel of the two protagonists illustrates that the resemblance between the novels is not limited to their outer structures. And still further symmetry of technique is evident. Biblical allusions, for example, in the character of each priest are clear. Hauptmann calls his protagonist “[den] Sohn … Gottes, [den] neuen Adam” ‘the son of God, the new Adam’ (p. 570) and at one point Francesco feels “… als ob er selber sum Gott würde” ‘as if he himself became God’ (p. 542). The name Manuel is synonymous with the name of Christ (Emmanuel). Don Manuel's saint's day is January 1st, his patron saint being Christ, himself. And more than once don Manuel is depicted as Christ or the second Christ.⁹

Leader and follower roles in the biblical sense are turned upside down in Der Ketzer. On one occasion while Francesco is fending off one buck's horns another steals his breviary and begins to eat the pages. He, unable to control the goats, is rescued by Agata who drives them away. In this scene the normal roles of priest and disciple are reversed. The priest is the helpless soul, and the girl his saviour:

Du hast mich gerettet, braves Mädchen! … Es ist eigentlich wunderlich, dass ich trotz meines Hirtenamts gegen deine Herde so hilflos bin.

(p. 522)¹⁰

In a subsequent role exchange, Agata becomes the maternal Madonna figure to Francesco.

Similarly, in San Manuel Bueno, mártir the priest/disciple roles of don Manuel and Angela are also occasionally reversed. Don Manuel exchanges his male-father-priest role for a “varón matriarcal.” Pelayo Fernández refers to him as “padre y madre a la vez.”¹¹ At times the child, Angela, becomes no longer his follower and pupil, but his confessor and saviour and maternal comfort. She calls him her spiritual father but she also feels motherly toward him. With this comparison, Manuel and Francesco share yet another literary trait, being now a leader, now a helpless child.

In addition to these allusory elements in the works, we shall see that symbolism in objects is comparable in both novels as well.

The women of Soana in Der Ketzer wash their clothes in a communal basin ; a sarcophagus which was found in an ancient oak grove nearby. The symbolism of water flowing through a coffin—life through a vessel of death—is clear enough. That the sarcophagus should have been uncovered ironically in an oak grove, the oak tree representing strength and long life,¹² indicates death's omni-presence.

The eternity symbol of the tree linked to a coffin is paralleled in San Manuel Bueno. Don Manuel requested he be buried in a casket made of the wood from a walnut tree which he knew when he was a boy. The symbolism here is twofold. First, the tree, again, is suggestive of regenerative processes and the cosmic axis linking heaven, earth and hell ; thus infinite life.¹³ Second, don Manuel knew this particular tree when he was young (and still a believer) but now he has destroyed it, and along with it the illusion of eternal life.

Fernández asserts that this walnut tree represents don Manuel's supreme desire to recuperate the lost faith of his infancy.¹⁴ But if this is so, then why does he cut the tree down? Fernández supports his argument, saying: “El nogal, árbol eterno, símbolo de la eternidad, es donde Don Manuel quiere enterrarse.”¹⁵ This interpretation indicates that don Manuel was still hopeful. However, he has no hope in eternity.¹⁶ I see his action of cutting down the walnut tree as don Manuel's yielding to the unhappy reality that anything presumed eternal simply cannot be. Like Francesco, Manuel silently admits defeat in his mortal struggle. Fernández points out (and perhaps even in disagreement with himself): “¡Qué paradoja la del párroco! Llegará a ser santo, pero no por aquella fe de niño, sino por la pérdida de ella.”¹⁷ And so don Manuel becomes a saint for the same reason Ludovico comes to be known a heretic!

Perhaps the most obvious symbols in San Manuel are the mountain and the lake of Valverde de Lucerna. The mountain in both novels is representative of spiritual and philosophical elevation. Although the lake exists as an important symbol in Der Ketzer, perhaps more prominent is the waterfall. At the top of the mountain a brook (Savaglia) begins which leads to the waterfall of Soana and eventually feeds into Lake Lugano at the base of Monte Generoso. The ‘eternal hum of this waterfall’ (“mit ewigen Summen des Falles,” p. 567) strongly implies its vital significance. When the truth about life is out of Francesco's reach at the beginning of the novel, so is the waterfall:

… unten ein naher Bach und mehr von ferne, der Wasserfall von Soana hinemrauschte.

(p. 497)¹⁸

The symbolic rushing water representing the truth of creation comes closer to Francesco as he approaches spiritual conversion:

Der Wasserfall sandte sein Brausen, jetzt aufschwellend, jetzt absinkend, durchs offene Fenster herein, und die Erregung des Priesters wuchs so oft es sich steigerte.

(p. 561)¹⁹

And at one point Francesco, the converted priest, reveals his oneness with creation:

Wenn ich den Wasserfall von Soana rauschen Höre, so möchte ich am liebsten in die tiefe Schlucht hinunter klettern und mich unter die stürzenden Wassermassen stellen, stundenlang, gleichsam um ausserlich und innerlich rein und gesund zu werden.

(pp. 525-26)²⁰

The significance of this cycle of water is very close to the image of the waterfall which appears in Unamuno's novel. Don Manuel compares life's struggle with a waterfall:

Mi vida, Lázaro, es una especie de suicidio continuo, un combate contra el suicidio, que es igual … Aquí se remansa el río en lago, para luego bajando a la meseta, precipitarse en cascadas, saltos y torrenteras por las hoces y encañadas, junto a la ciudad, y así se remansa la vida, aquí, en la aldea.

(p. 46)

Water in each work represents the cycle of life, birth at the top of the mountain and death in the lake. The symbolic similarities of the mountain, the lake and the waterfall, although not identical in both works are still remarkable, especially when one considers that they are mentioned with more than just passing significance at least fifteen times in Unamuno's story and thirteen in Hauptmann's.

Another balance of symbolism in the works is that of bells. There is a climactic point near the end of Der Ketzer when Agata, the shepherd girl, comes to the church to see Francesco. Since her family is hated by the townspeople, they stone her as she enters the village. Francesco is caught up in a web of confusion and excitement and it is Agata's ringing of the confessional bell that brings him back to the reality of the situation. In Unamuno's story, Angela imagines she hears the church bells of the lost city at the bottom of the lake.²¹ Lázaro suggests those fateful bells might come from the soul of don Manuel who also talks about the sunken city and its mysterious ringing bells. For Manuel, these bells may be tolling the reality of death, just as the ringing of the confessional bell awakens Francesco to the reality of his situation.²²

On a large scale, nature as a symbol also harmonizes in the novels. The final lines of Hauptmann's work describe a woman who is, for him, the epitome of nature. She is the “Human Female,” a goddess, an “unearthly being.” The writer says:

… er fühlte vor diesem Weibe sich ganz, ganz klein werden … Sie stieg aus der Tiefe der Welt empor und stieg an dem Staunenden Vorbei—und sie steigt und steigt in die Ewigkeit, aus die, in deren gnadenlose Hände Himmel und Höhn überantwortet sind.

(pp. 582-84)²³

This last impressive word picture of Der Ketzer must have been unforgettable for Unamuno as he seems to have recreated the image in his own work. Lázaro tells Angela of a girl that caught don Manuel's eye on one of their walks. Gazing on her Manuel exclaims:

Mira, parece como si se hubiera acabado el tiempo, como si esa zagala hubiese estado ahí siempre, y como está, y cantando como está, y como si hubiera de seguir estando así siempre, como estuvo cuando no empezó mi conciencia, como estará cuando se me acabe. Esa zagala forma parte, con las rocas, las nubes, los árboles, las aguas, de la naturaleza y no de la historia.

(p. 47)

Unamuno is not content with the girl being just a zagala, a shepherdess, as just prior to these lines he qualifies her to be a cabrera. Repeatedly throughout Hauptmann's novel the image of the goat is both real and figurative and Agata, the woman the narrator is watching in the passage cited above, is the goatherd for whom Hauptmann's priest has given up his religion. If Unamuno is using this goatherd image symbolically, her significance is probably maternal and representative of creation which is exactly how the symbol is used in Der Ketzer.²⁴

Each of the women is singing in a clear voice, and of course each is on her respective mountain. The singularly feminine creature each viewer sees has nothing to do with mortality. She is timeless. For Hauptmann this woman is larger than life and climbing out from the past into the future, above this life and out of reach of death. Unamuno portrays her as one for whom “hubiera acabado el tiempo,” an immortal being. Don Manuel sees himself as the individual Man for whom life has a beginning and an end: “cuando no empezó mi conciencia … cuando se me acabe.”²⁵ But this shepherdess is “parte … de la naturaleza y no de la historia.” She is not a segment of life, but life itself, and creation—just as she is for Hauptmann's priest.

The interpretation of the female goatherd passage in Hauptmann's novel is crucial to the understanding of his protagonist. The reader somehow pities the herdsman Ludovico even though he is, from outward appearance, a happy, satisfied man with his found freedom. One pities him because, having rejected the Christian doctrine of heaven and hell, he seems to be substituting praise of Eros for what he really was searching for: The meaning of life on earth. A satisfied man would be more likely to forget the tribulations of his past than to dwell on them. But Ludovico felt the haunting necessity to write down the torturing recollections of his “conversion.” In 1922 Paul Fechter saw this dichotomy in the work and developed it in his book Gerhart Hauptmann, Leben und Werke.²⁶ Quoting Hauptmann's last lines which say this woman held heaven and hell in her “merciless hands,” Fechter remarks that to describe a woman against whom there is no protection:

… sounds less like praise for Eros and much nearer to helpless prostration (Katzenjammer). Eros knows nothing about that—and even less of merciless hands. With these words a peculiar shift in theme occurs to a suddenly tragic one … And from this point on [that is to say, the end] the work suddenly becomes something of an enthusiasm born from a completely different feeling and knowledge. It is an enthusiasm not of belief but of the will to believe—and thereby something negative.²⁷

It appears that Ludovico has found the answer to his quest. He celebrates life. But by his very idealization of Eros, by definition, Ludovico accepts death as a proclamation.²⁸ Fechter's idea cited above nullifies Ludovico's celebration of life. And therein lies the theme which Unamuno must have seen and also the interpretation which brings the story much closer to San Manuel Bueno, mártir; the desire to believe what logic prevents.

The idea that destiny is ordered not by man, but at the whim of some other force is discussed by J. W. Butt, in his article “Determinism and the Inadequacies of Unamuno's Radicalism.”²⁹ He argues that neither the individual nor his ideas determine the future, according to Unamuno's theory, but forces outside the individual are in charge. In Der Ketzer that outside force is symbolized by the hands of the shepherdess.

Frequently critical readers try to relate the psychology of the fictional character to his creator. And a reflection of Miguel de Unamuno can be seen in his protagonist, don Manuel. However, the term “autobiographical” must be used with some degree of restraint when viewing a fictional character in the exemplary light of his author. Don Manuel is no more the literary lithograph of Miguel de Unamuno than don Quijote is of Cervantes. We see a variety of very strong parallels between creator and created but the mirror image is theoretical and not practical. Likewise, as the critic William McClain judges: “To read Der Ketzer von Soana simply as a personal confession of faith … is to assign to it a far too limited meaning.”³⁰ With this in mind one can better understand how the plights of the two protagonists might be extremely different, and yet the characters display the closely related ideologies of their inventors. The main and decisive difference between the two priests is that Francesco is able to get himself free from his torment, while don Manuel dies with his. Francesco rebels and don Manuel keeps his disturbance inside of himself without release. Ludovico describes his own change as:

… aus einem unnatürlichen Menschen ein natürlicher, aus einem gefangenen ein freier, aus einem zerstörten und verdrossenen ein glücklicher und zufriedener.

(p. 490)³¹

Don Manuel remained the first of all of these. He did not make the psychological change. It is conceivable that the character don Manuel is Unamuno's version of the Spanish cultural counterpart to the German outcast and daring individualist, Ludovico, the heretic. The two protagonists differ in attitude and endurance. Unamuno's character could be Hauptmann's character Ludovico, but translated into both the Spanish culture and Unamuno's own philosophy of man's forever seeking to become immortal.

There are many elements these two works have in common which are perhaps not obvious to the casual reader. Unamuno used the same symbolism, the same method of narration, the same motif, and the same theme as Hauptmann. Could he possibly not have known of the earlier work? After all, did he not ask his friend in Berlin: “… envíeme de Hauptmann”?

To be sure, the two priests do not end up in the same situation, but their beliefs are the same: Life is life on earth and must have meaning in itself. It is that meaning which each priest felt compelled to discover.

Notes

1. Sergio Fernández Larraín, Cartas inéditas de Miguel de Unamuno (Madrid: Ediciones Rodas, 1972), p. 258.

2. John V. Falconiere summarizes five proposed sources and adds three of his own in “The Sources of Unamuno's San Manuel Bueno,” Romance Notes, V (1963), pp. 19-22. The eight possibilities are: Reminiscencias Tudescas by Santiago Pérez Triana, Robert Elsmere by Mistress Humphry Ward, Le pere Hyacinthe by Pauker, Emile by Rousseau, the poem of the Bishop Blougram by Browning, Enten-Eller by Kierkegaard, the poem Beyond Human Power by Bjornstjerne Bjornson, and La fe by Armando Palacio Valdés.

   Luppoli suggests Fogazzaro's Il Santo in his 1968 article (Cuadernos de la Cátedra Miguel de Unamuno, 18, 49-70). M. J. Valdés' 1981 Cátedra edition includes no discussion of Unamuno's source of inspiration. Neither does John Butt in his otherwise detailed 1981 study (Miguel de Unamuno, San Manuel Bueno, mártir, London: Tamesis).

3. Fernández Larraín (see note 1). Two letters from 1896 and 1898 (pp. 229 and 248). Hauptmann's play Fuhrmann Henschel was found in Unamuno's personal library. The fact that Der Ketzer was not is not particularly significant. Valdés remarks: “With disturbing frequency, we found that books which Unamuno commented upon at length in his writings were missing from our catalog.” (Mario J. Valdés and Elena de Valdés, An Unamuno Source Book, Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1973, pp. x, xi). Two such works which were cited in Unamuno's Obras Completas are Die Weber and Die versunkene Glocke by Gerhart Hauptmann. (Source Book, p. 280).

4. In Gerhart Hauptmann: Ausgewählte Werke, Vol. 5 (Berlin: S. Fischer, 1925), pp. 481-584. All references are to this edition. Page numbers appear in parentheses within the text. Translations appearing in Notes are my own.

5. In San Manuel Sergio mártir, y tres historias más (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1980), pp. 25-60. All references are to this edition. Page numbers appear in parentheses within the text.

6. The terms “dramatized” and “undramatized” are borrowed from Wayne C. Booth's The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago, 1961, pp. 151-52) in which the distinction is made between the author as a character in his own creation and the author as solely an observer of the action.

7. … he was … surrounded, mostly by children and women, who kissed his hand with genuine respect. Soon the name of the young priest Francesco Vela spread far and wide, even to the surrounding districts, and in reputation he came to be known as a saint.

8. Pelayo Fernández, Ll problema de la personalidad en Unamuno y en San Manuel Bueno (Madrid: Mayfe, 1966), p. 144.

9. A direct reference appears on page 29: “y era como si oyesen a Nuestro Señor Jesucristo mismo.”

   Der Ketzer von Soana is by far not Hauptmann's only work dealing with religious questions. Perhaps even more akin to the concept of don Manuel being a Christ figure is Hauptmann's protagonist in his novel Der Narr in Christo, Emanuel Quint (1910, The Fool in Christ Emmanuel Quint). Conspicuously in this case, even the name is shared.

10. You saved me, courageous little girl! … It is really strange that, in spite of my pastoral office, I am so helpless against your flock.

11. Pelayo Fernández, p. 197, note 2.

12. J. E. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols, trans. Jack Sage (New York: Philosophical Library, 1962), p. 227.

13. Cirlot, p. 328.

14. Pelayo Fernández, p. 145.

15. Ibid.

16. This is seen clearly by his comment to Lázaro: “que sueñe [nuestro] pueblo su vida” (p. 47), knowing, as he does that their dream is not able to be fulfilled.

17. Pelayo Fernández, p. 146.

18. … below a nearby brook and, from much farther away, came the sound of the waterfall of Soana.

19. The waterfall sent its rage, now swelling now diminishing in through the open window, and the excitement of the priest grew, as the sound increased.

20. When I hear the sound of the waterfall of Soana, I want most to climb down into the deep gorge and stand for hours under the plunging water to become clean and healthy outside and inside.

21. In the prologue to his 1932 edition of San Manuel Bueno, mártir Unamuno tells about the legend of Valverde de Lucerna, a city lost at the bottom of the lake of San Martín de Castañeda in Sanabria (Pelayo Fernández, p. 124).

22. In another work of Hauptmann's, Die versunkene Glocke (1897), it is the ringing of a church bell—one in fact which lies at the bottom of a lake—that awakens the bell-founder to reality. This work was likely known to Unamuno, as he requested it specifically on February 6, 1899 in a letter to Pedro de Mugica: “‘Die versunkene Glocke' de Hauptmann me [interesaría]” (Fernández Larraín, p. 258).

23. … in the presence of this woman he felt himself become very, very small … She ascended from the depths of the world and passed her astounded observer—and she climbs and climbs into the future, as the one into whose merciless hands heaven and hell are delivered.

    As for the idea that Hauptmann was a naturalist, the author underwent a stylistic change in 1887, at which point the naturalistic resemblance in his work ended (q.v. Leroy R. Shaw, “Witness of Deceit: Gerhart Hauptmann as Critic of Society,” in Publications in Modern Philology (Berkeley: Univ. of Calif. Press, 1958), p. 22). Hauptmann never adopted one mode of writing and remained in it and he did not enjoy the appellative “naturalist”: “[The word] is like the green of a swamp, very dark, very discouraging … When someone speaks to me of naturalism I can see Emile Zola in front of me with large, dark blue spectacles” (Shaw quotes from Voigt, Hauptmann-Studien über das Leben und Schaffen Gerhart Hauptmanns (Breslau, 1936)).

24. Cirlot documents the goat as a maternal symbol (p. 59).

25. Wm. H. McClain points out that Hauptmann used a priest as his protagonist to show that even the spiritual leaders and “the highest human beings” are but men and hence imperfect (“The Case of Hauptmann's Fallen Priest,” The German Quarterly, XXX, No. 3 (1957), p. 179). The same feeling is induced at this point in Unamuno's work when a priest—an instrument of God—refers to himself as an individual.

26. Dresden: Sibyllen, 1922.

27. Ibid., p. 134-35, my translation.

28. “Eros, [the] object of our supreme Desire, intensifies all our desires only in order to offer them up in sacrifice.” Denis de Rougement, Love in the Western World, trans. Montgomery Belgion (N.Y.: Pantheon, 1956), p. 66.

29. BHS, 46-47 (1969-70), 226-240.

30. McClain, “The Case,” p. 168.

31. … from an unnatural human being to a natural one, a prisoner to a free man, a ravaged and annoyed person to a happy and satisfied one.