Miguel de Unamuno

Miguel de Unamuno
Miguel de Unamuno in 1925
Born	Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo 29 September 1864 Bilbao, Biscay, Spain
Died	31 December 1936 (aged 72) Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
Nationality	Spanish
Alma mater	Complutense University of Madrid
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	Platonism Scholasticism Positivism Existentialism
Main interests	Philosophy of religion, politics
Notable ideas	Agony of Christianity
Influences Marcus Aurelius, St. Augustine, Pascal, Rousseau, Kierkegaard
Influenced José Ortega y Gasset, Txillardegi, Joxe Azurmendi

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (29 September 1864 – 31 December 1936) was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher, professor of Greek and Classics, and later rector at the University of Salamanca.

His major philosophical essay was The Tragic Sense of Life (1912), and his most famous novel was Abel Sánchez: The History of a Passion (1917), a modern exploration of the Cain and Abel story.

Miguel de Unamuno was born in Bilbao, a port city of Basque Country, the son of Félix de Unamuno and Salomé Jugo. As a young man, he was interested in the Basque language and competed for a teaching position in the Instituto de Bilbao against Sabino Arana. The contest was finally won by the Basque scholar Resurrección María de Azkue.

Unamuno worked in all major genres: the essay, the novel, poetry, and theater, and, as a modernist, contributed greatly to dissolving the boundaries between genres. There is some debate as to whether Unamuno was in fact a member of the Generation of '98, an ex post facto literary group of Spanish intellectuals and philosophers that was the creation of José Martínez Ruiz — a group that includes Antonio Machado, Azorín, Pío Baroja, Ramón del Valle-Inclán, Ramiro de Maeztu, and Ángel Ganivet, among others.