Sanctity, heroism, and performance in Miguel de Unamuno's San Manuel Bueno, martir.

THE title of Miguel de Unamuno's text identifies its main protagonist as a "saint"--San Manuel Bueno, martir (1931; my emphasis). The recurrent association of don Manuel with the words "san," "santo," and "santidad"--33 times to be exact in a 55-page text--is haunting. It also raises the question: Under what criteria could don Manuel be considered a saint? Strangely enough, critics have rarely reflected on the designation of don Manuel as "saint." (1) Yet, the issue of the priest's saintliness is essential from a hermeneutic perspective since, unless his proclaimed sainthood is meant to be ironic, a clear sense of how and why don Manuel is a saint can shed much light on the meaning of a text with such a title. Furthermore, the text also associates the priest's attributed sainthood with heroism--his "heroica santidad" (108; my emphasis). As in the case of sainthood, critics have not delved thoroughly into this clearly stated aspect of San Manuel. (2) I suggest that in order to reach a deeper understanding of Unamuno's novel the reader needs to take into account both dimensions of don Manuel's ascribed identity--sainthood and heroism--and consider the synergy between them in view of the priest's performance on his stage, the village of Valverde de Lucerna.

In this essay, I shall examine, first, if don Manuel's deeds fit the requirements for sainthood, not in a religious sense, but as used in contemporary moral philosophy specifically by J. O. Urmson. Second, I will develop how don Manuel's role in Unamuno's text corresponds to that of the tragic hero of ancient Greek tragedy. In this task, I benefit from Sigmund Freud's understanding of the psychological function of the tragic hero as developed in Totem and Taboo. Finally, don Manuel's sainthood and heroism will be shown to ultimately rely on "restored behavior," that is, on performance. Another way to approach this issue, as the contemporary German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk puts it, is to assume that the behavior of saints and heroes is always modeled after the deeds of those saints and heroes that came before. Don Manuel's actions and words are no exception, and in his efforts to shape Valverde de Lucerna into what Victor Turner calls communitas (From Ritual 44), the priest restores Christ's behavior as the greatest saint and the archetypal tragic hero in what Angela describes as "su divino, su santisimo juego" (146; my emphasis).

I. ETHICS AND SAINTHOOD

Unamuno's text dramatizes don Manuel's painful shift, in the sphere of ethics, from a "heteronomous" moral framework to an "autonomous" one. (3) As Kant says in his Critique of Practical Reason, a heteronomous conscience follows principles whose origins are outside itself (such as "divine command"), while an autonomous one is self-determined (60). From this perspective, as a heteronomous human being, don Manuel used to be a unified conscience, one whose convictions, deeds and words unfailingly depended on the existence of a Supreme Being and the categorical nature of a main duty: obedience to His commands. One must note, however, that the text does not speak of the adult don Manuel as a believer; it only refers to him as such during his childhood, and not in uncertain terms: " Y entonces si creia en la vida perdurable! Es decir, me figuro ahora que creia entonces. Para un nino, creer no es mas que sonar" (137-38). Perhaps, the only time in his life that don Manuel possessed a unified conscience was during his childhood. After that, he remains within the Church without questioning its main dogmas until he becomes aware of his lack of faith in the existence of God and the afterlife, a moment that he marks in his prayer book. According to Angela: "mi hermano [Lazaro] guardo su breviario, entre cuyas hojas encontro, desecada y como en un herbario, una clavellina pegada a un papel, y en este, una cruz con una fecha" (140). (4) The only thing that we can be sure of in this regard is that during the boundaries of his/her duty, while the second kind goes beyond, performing "supererogatory" actions, that is, actions "beyond the call of duty" (Grenz 115). In order to avoid any doubt regarding the possible sainthood of don Manuel, we will measure the quality of his actions against Urmson's second, superior kind of saint. (5)

According to Urmson's definition, the saint "does actions that are far beyond the limits of his duty." How do don Manuel's actions go beyond his duty as a priest? The text offers abundant examples in this regard. If a priest's responsibilities are to administer the sacraments, celebrate religious acts, and promote the Church's doctrine," don Manuel's self-imposed agenda surpasses by far these obligations. In fact, don Manuel understands that his mission is first and foremost to promote life and joy in this world: "Lo primero--decia--es que el pueblo este contento, que esten todos contentos de vivir. El contentamiento de vivir es lo primero de todo" (107; my emphasis). In this agenda, clearly inspired by Romantic metaphysics--"where life itself is the highest good ... and the norm of life is joy" (Abrams 431)--the traditional duties of a parroco are not emphasized. The exception is the celebration of the mass as an event where the people of Valverde de Lucerna are brought together as community. To this ritual, don Manuel adds "un santo ejercicio que introdujo en el culto popular" (103): the common prayer of the Credo, which I shall discuss later in this essay.

Don Manuel's restless life--he was "siempre ocupado" (105)--is associated with the notion of Romantic love as a world-view promoting integration of the individual with other people and with his/her milieu (Abrams 292-99): "Love ... expresses the confraternity of the one life shared not only with other men but also with a milieu in which man can feel fully at home" (Abram 431). Don Manuel's attachment to Valverde de Lucerna--"su aldea perdida como un broche entre el lago y la montana" (99)--and his love for his people are the foundation of this unitive, organic metaphysics: "Y como queria a los suyos! Su vida era arreglar matrimonios desavenidos, reducir a sus padres hijos indomitos o reducir los padres a sus hijos, y sobre todo consolar a los amargados y atediados y ayudar a todos a bien morir" (99; my emphasis). Thus, he keeps his parishioners together--"en unanimidad de sentido" (123)--promoting unity in families, and helping individuals to keep a sense of integration within themselves, with others, and with the world even at the moment that most clearly challenges the sense of human continuity, death. Don Manuel also makes it his duty to take care of everyday, material concerns:

   A las madres, sobre todo, les redactaba las cartas para sus hijos
   ausentes. Trabajaba tambien manualmente, ayudando con sus brazos a
   ciertas labores del pueblo. En la temporada de trilla ibase a la
   era a trillar y aventar, y en tanto aleccionaba o distraia a los
   labradores.... Sustituia a las veces a algun enfermo en su tarea.
   En invierno partia lena para los pobres.... Solia hacer tambien las
   pelotas para que jugaran los mozos y no pocos juguetes para los
   ninos.... Solia acompanar al medico en su visita, y recalcaba las
   prescripciones de este. Se interesaba tambien en los embarazos y en
   la crianza de los ninos.... Iba tambien a menudo a la escuela a
   ayudar al maestro, a ensenar con el, y no solo el catecismo.
   (105-7)

Yet, don Manuel's main supererogatory action is his decision to carry the burden of facing alone what he believes is the certainty of a future nothingness after death and the consequences of such conviction for this life. As opposed to the agnostic who lives in the uncertainty of whether God exists or not, but who ultimately does not worry about it, the consciousness who has existed in a heteronomous ethical framework and for whom existence within ethical autonomy is deeply troubling --as illustrated by don Manuel--experiences a terrible void in facing the prospect of a self condemned to unavoidable physical and spiritual discontinuity. Yet, the priest decides to carry "la cruz del nacimiento" (115) alone, until Lazaro Carballino arrives in Valverde de Lucerna and don Manuel confesses his secret to him. That this is his major torment is expressed by the priest himself when Lazaro asks don Manuel why he has confessed his "truth" to him: "porque si no me atormentaria tanto, tanto, que acabaria gritandola en medio de la plaza, y eso jamas, jamas, jamas" (123), making clear the extent of his "infinita y eterna tristeza que ... recataba a los ojos y a los oidos de los demas" (108; my emphasis).

In brief, it would seem unwarranted to demand from a priest who loses his faith in immortality and in God that he continue doing what don Manuel does in terms of his actions and his silent suffering while remaining a priest. Needless to say, in different circumstances, the inclination or self-interest of a faithless priest would cause him to fail to perform his duties as priest--let alone to go beyond the call of duty and act like the most enthusiastic believer. Yet, don Manuel's acts of supererogation are obvious and, as we shall see, they cannot be related with a principle of individual gain beyond a fundamental sense of basic human fulfillment.

The second part of Urmson's definition of a higher type of saint refers to the idea that s/he performs in situations where others would not do it "whether by control of contrary inclination and interest or without effort" (62). Thus, overcoming individual self-interest, that is, not being utilitarian neither in the egoistic sense--as in the individual whose purpose is his/her "own happiness"--nor the hedonistic sense--where the goodness or rightness of actions depends on their "pleasantness or unpleasantness" (Smart 207)--is a key component of a saint's actions. Unamuno's text mentions the reasons why don Manuel becomes a priest: "Deciase que habia entrado en un seminario para hacerse cura, con el fin de atender a los hijos de una su hermana recien viuda, de servirles de padre; que en el seminario se habia distinguido por su agudeza mental y su talento y que habia rechazado ofertas de brillante carrera eclesiastica porque el no queria ser sino de su Valverde de Lucerna" (99). Don Manuel rejects a brilliant career within the official Church to be in his village with his people whom he wants to serve. That don Manuel's decision is not inspired by utilitarianism is clearly suggested when the circus comes to Valverde de Lucerna, and by Lazaro's reaction to one of his conversations with don Manuel. In the first case, as the clown is performing, his wife, who is pregnant, withdraws from the stage in great pain, and then she dies shortly after that. However, when the clown sees her leaving the stage he continues performing despite the fact the he is extremely worried about her situation. After the clown's wife dies, the clown responds to don Manuel's comforting words: "Bien se dice, senor cura, que es usted todo un santo," and don Manuel answers: "el santo eres tu, honrado payaso; te vi trabajar, y comprendi que no solo lo haces para dar pan a tus hijos, sino tambien para dar alegria a los de los otros" (108). It takes a special sensitivity that Fernando Savater calls "gusto" to fully understand when certain acts are extraordinary beyond their consequences or practical results (194). Don Manuel has that sensitivity in this revealing case because the clown is doing for children what don Manuel himself is doing for the people of Valverde de Lucerna as a whole: bringing them joy and happiness beyond any personal utilitarian motivation. Don Manuel has the "gusto" to unmistakably recognize a twin soul in the circus artist. If, as Max Scheler says regarding the hero that "only the hero fully values the hero" (591), one could also say, mutatis mutandis, that only the saint fully values the saint.

Lazaro also contributes to making the case against don Manuel's utilitarianism when he recounts to Angela a conversation that he had with the priest where don Manuel revealed his true motivations and admonished Lazaro:

   para que no escandalizase, para que diese buen ejemplo, para que se
   incorporase a la vida religiosa del pueblo, para que fingiese creer
   si no creia, para que ocultase sus ideas al respecto, mas sin
   intentar siquiera catequizarle, convertirle de otra manera....
   Entonces ... comprendi sus moviles y con esto comprendi su
   santidad; porque es un santo, hermana, todo un santo. No trataba,
   al emprender ganarme para su santa causa--porque es una causa
   santa, santisima--, arrogarse un triunfo, sino que lo hacia por la
   paz, por la felicidad, por la ilusion si quieres, de los que le
   estan encomendados; comprendi que si les engana asi--si es que esto
   es engano--no es por medrar. (122; my emphasis).

Lazaro is certain that don Manuel's efforts do not have as a goal to gain anything for himself or to avoid unpleasantness, but to promote life and happiness among his people, and through them a sense of existential meaning--which for the priest is the most precious thing that a person can posses.

It can be argued, however, that don Manuel feels so rooted in his village, Valverde de Lucerna, that, after all, he is "self-interested" in keeping it together, which could be seen as the result of a utilitarian motivation. Yet, it is important to remember the difference between a sense of personal end, or finalidad, which indicates a full development of the self ("realizacion del yo") and utilitarian interest. When speaking of the human sense of finality, Aristotle says in "Book I" of the Nichomachean Ethics that the notion of the "good" as "honest" leads all intelligent beings to act towards an end: "Every course of action and deliberate preference, seems to aim at some good; and consequently 'the good' has been well defined as 'that which all things aim at'" (1). For Aristotle all intelligent beings act for an end. Thomas Aquinas in the "Second Chapter" of his The Summa contra Gentiles develops the same idea: "every agent, by its action, intends an end" (5) and, in his Summa Theologica, he says that "those things that are possessed of reason, move themselves to an end" (1: 584). The same notion in the realm of aesthetics resurfaces when Kant speaks in his Critique of Judgment of art's purposiveness without purpose: "Fine art ... is purposive ... even though without a purpose" (173), which is an assertion of the compatibility of simultaneously possessing a sense of an end and yet being disinterested. Thus, it would be a mistake to confuse don Manuel's human sense of fulfillment with a utilitarian ethics in the senses mentioned above.(tm) Walter Glannon has argued that don Manuel "is motivated primarily by a sense of duty, acting to ensure the happiness of the religious faithful without any benefit accruing to him as a consequence" (338). He rejects the notion that don Manuel benefits in any way by his actions, and argues that the priest is solely motivated by altruism. Glannon justifies his interpretation by stressing the text's use of deber instead of querer: "Yo no debo vivir solo; yo no debo morir solo; debo vivir para mi pueblo, morir para mi pueblo" (109). However, according to Urmson, an extraordinary sense of duty is part of the very definition of sainthood, and yet such sense seems compatible with possessing a basic sense of personal end as a rational, deliberate agent--as Julian Marias says about don Manuel: "charity if properly understood, in fact begins in oneself" (11). Furthermore, Glannon's assertion that don Manuel only uses deber and not querer in the way he expresses his motivations is not the whole story. The text clearly says that: "El [don Manuel] no queria ser sino de su Valverde de Lucerna" (99; my emphasis). This attachment to his milieu and the human beings that the milieu synecdochically represents makes don Manuel feel "fully at home," a feeling that for the priest includes the basic sense of personal comfort that results from "consolarme en consolar a los demas" (123).

The third component of sainthood for Urmson is the exercise of extraordinary self-control. Don Manuel's discipline, despite his suffering, seems clear. Certainly, the priest is not the Aristotelian saint who would display his saintly behavior "without effort" (Urmson 62). For don Manuel, pain and effort are part of his daily existence: " Mi vida, Lazaro, es una especie de suicidio continuo, un combate contra el suicidio, que es igual; pero que vivan ellos, que vivan los nuestros!.... Sigamos, pues, Lazaro, suicidandonos en nuestra obra y en nuestro pueblo, y que suene este vida como el lago suena el cielo" (128-29; my emphasis). Glannon correctly suggests that "Manuel remains in control of himself.... It is by means of this control over his suicidal tendencies, while remaining committed to the people of Valverde de Lucerna, that Manuel's virtue manifests itself" (332). Don Manuel continues to live in sorrow, fear, and hopelessness--in order to promote joy, hope, and confidence, but it is the management of his despair and desolation that makes don Manuel's self-control corroborate Urmson's third condition for identifying saintly behavior. (8)

In conclusion, don Manuel can be considered a saint in the moral, philosophical sense proposed by Urmson. In the text, however, the perception of don Manuel's sainthood is not the result of only one point of view. Different people who are exposed to him and/or his legacy--and for different reasons--reach the same conclusion, according to the hagiographer Angela Carballino. The official Catholic Church and its hierarchy see in him a holy figure of the Church and consider his deeds saintly: "el obispo de la diocesis de Renada ... anda, a lo que se dice, promoviendo el proceso para la beatificacion de nuestro don Manuel" (95; my emphasis). Lazaro Carballino, an atheist like don Manuel, says: "Entonces ... comprendi su santidad; porque es un santo, hermana, todo un santo" (122; my emphasis). Angela, a believer who knows don Manuel's secret, refers to him at the very outset and at the end of the narration as "San Manuel Bueno" (95, 147; my emphasis). Finally, when don Manuel dies, the people of Valverde de Lucerna go to his house to pick up relics of the "saint" (140): "El pueblo todo se fue en seguida a la casa del santo a recoger reliquias" (140; my emphasis). This accumulation of perspectives regarding don Manuel's sainthood creates a wider, more general perspective that, in accordance with Ortega y Gasset's perspectivism, might be the only way to define truth: "Yuxtaponiendo las visiones parciales de todos se lograria tejer la verdad omnimoda" (3:202).

II. HEROISM AND TRAGEDY

Unamuno's text takes the moral standing of don Manuel beyond sainthood and it refers to the priest's "heroica santidad" (108; my emphasis). As we shall see, don Manuel's heroism is deeply rooted in classical culture, and his performance in Unamuno's text closely coincides with that of the tragic hero of ancient Greek tragedy. For Cerezo Galan, San Manuel "se eleva a un rango de leyenda--la leyenda del cura santo de Valverde de Lucerna--, y su protagonista es un heroe tragico" (714). The tragic aspect of don Manuel, according to Cerezo Galan, is part of the priest's "fondo de increencia" that for Unamuno "forma parte constitutiva del alma tragica, como contrapunto a su voluntad y necesidad de creer" (715). (9) Clearly, the contrast between the "fondo de increencia" and the "voluntad y necesidad de creer"--ultimately the dramatic gap between an undesired autonomy and a longed-for ethical heteronomy--marks a fundamental aspect of the priest's tragedy. Yet, there is much more to don Manuel's tragic heroism. Unamuno's background as a professor of Greek and as a playwright intimately familiar with Greek tragedy is essential in the development of don Manuel as tragic hero following closely the pattern set by the most ancient Greek tragedy. The fact that this key feature of don Manuel as a character has been overlooked so far has created some critical confusion. For instance, some critics have mistakenly considered don Manuel to be dishonest with his people for not revealing to them his disbelief in the afterlife (Regalado 202, Wyers 110, Mancing 357). As we shall see, the close connection between San Manuel and Greek tragedy sheds light on the reason why the priest cannot make public his innermost beliefs, an issue intimately connected with the moral status of the people of Valverde de Lucerna, which is different and yet not necessarily inferior to that of the more individualized figures of the text--don Manuel, Lazaro, and Angela.

In Totem and Taboo, Freud, who has in mind "the most ancient Greek tragedy" (192), refers to "a company of individuals, named and dressed alike," who "sorrounded a single figure, all hanging upon his words and deeds: they were the Chorus and the impersonator of the Hero. He was originally the only actor" (192-93). In San Manuel this "actor" is don Manuel. He is surrounded by "a company of individuals" who are fundamentally alike--his parishioners--who are the equivalent of the most ancient Greek chorus, "all hanging upon his [don Manuel's] words and deeds." In fact, they depend so much on don Manuel, that the text almost identifies the villagers as being made in the priest's image: "Ya toda ella [Valverde de Lucerna] era don Manuel" (99). Freud continues saying that: "later, a second and third actor were added, to play as counterpart to the Hero and as characters split off from him; but the character of the Hero himself and his relation to the Chorus remained unaltered" (193); this is what happens in San Manuel when Lazaro "split[s] off from him," that is, from don Manuel's understanding of human existence, and he joins the priest's efforts as the other "actor." Lazaro, in fact, becomes what Savater calls the hero's "friend": "Aparece junto al heroe el amigo, una especie de alter ego que comparte con el la humanidad y admira lo sobrehumano de sus hazanas" (177). Yet, even after the new addition to his circle, don Manuel's relationship with his people (the "undifferentiated" Chorus) always remains "unaltered." Freud adds that:

   the hero of tragedy must suffer; to this day that remains the
   essence of tragedy. He had to bear the burden of what was known as
   'tragic guilt'; the basis for that guilt is not always easy to
   find, for in the light of our everyday life it is often no guilt at
   all. As a rule it lay in rebellion against some divine or human
   authority. (193)

It is easy to see how Don Manuel's suffering results from what Freud calls a "rebellion against a divine ... authority." Such rebellion is his lack of faith in individual immortality and, ultimately, against the God that promises it. If in different mythologies, when a mortal sees the face of God s/he dies, in San Manuel it is the opposite. (10) Don Manuel believes that if humans see the face of God, it is God who dies--"que no le vea, pues, la cara a Dios este nuestro pueblo mientras viva, que despues de muerto ya no hay cuidado, pues no vera nada..." (138). Don Manuel has seen the face of God the Father and the outcome has been the death of the paternal figure at the hands of the son, of don Manuel. This is not only the source of his personal guilt and suffering, but of his conviction that exposing his people to the contemplation of God's face is the greatest threat to their joy in this life. Freud describes in Totem and Taboo his famous myth of how the sons killed the primeval father in order to have access to the women that he kept for himself, and how they felt guilty after the killing. It was that shared guilt, Freud says, that led to the establishment of the law and the foundation of civil society (176-79). Just like the assassins of the primeval father established their institutions as a result of the guilt that they felt after their crime, don Manuel fills the emptiness left by the death of the Supreme Father with foundational acts of his own: he propagates a mythical story, a world-making fiction to keep the cohesion of the community, and with the same purpose he establishes the maternal institution of "la Santa Madre Iglesia de Valverde de Lucerna." He also chooses a paramount icon: a fully humanized Christ whose example becomes the chief model for his own ideas and behavior. In the context of the Church of Valverde de Lucerna, don Manuel is invested with major archetypal projections familiar to the Catholic Church: that of mother--"aquel varon matriarcal" (95; my emphasis), as he is called by Angela, reminiscent of "Maria Santisima" (139)--and that of the earthly Christ himself, as the text openly states: "nuestros dos Cristos, el de esta Tierra y el de esta aldea" (135). But the priest of Valverde de Lucerna is linked in San Manuel with yet another figure to whom Freud makes reference in his own myth. Freud expands further on the fruitful suffering of the hero:

   But why had the Hero of tragedy to suffer? And what was the meaning
   of his 'tragic guilt'? I will cut the discussion short and give a
   quick reply. He had to suffer because he was the primal father, the
   Hero of the great primaeval tragedy which was being re-enacted with
   a tendentious twist; and the tragic guilt which he had to take on
   himself in order to relieve the Chorus from theirs. (193; my
   emphasis)

Don Manuel suffers because he throws on himself the tragic guilt that humans need to confront--"la cruz del nacimiento" (110)--to prevent his people from a meaningless existence. (11) Through his suffering, he becomes the substitute of the divine Father and a demiurgic figure. Freud reiterates: "The crime which was thrown onto his shoulders, presumptuousness and rebelliousness against a great authority, was precisely the crime for which the members of the Chorus, the company of brothers, were responsible. Thus the tragic hero became ... the redeemer of the Chorus" (193-94; my emphasis). The tragic hero is "responsible for his own suffering" in Greek tragedy (Freud 194), and in Unamuno's text, don Manuel redeems the chorus voluntarily by making the great sacrifice of assuming the guilt of his people so "the company of brothers" would be freed from their guilt and the sin of birth: "el delito mayor del hombre es haber nacido" (136). Don Manuel's tragic re-enactment of the "great primeval tragedy" has two converging effects: first, it hides from the people the "crime" committed by their own birth and second, it prevents them from committing the crime that don Manuel himself has committed--the crime that they would certainly commit, as humans, if they saw the face of God. In other words, don Manuel's redemption of his people seeks to affirm their joyful existence by hiding from them their original crime and by helping them avoid the unavoidable act of killing God the Father that they, as rational human beings, would surely commit --their crime "ex-futuro"--(12) were they put in the situation to do so. Don Manuel's goal is clear: "que [las personas] se consuelen de haber nacido, que vivan lo mas contentos que puedan en la ilusion de que todo esto tiene una finalidad" (132-33). When the redeeming tragic hero dies, as Freud says, the members of the chorus exhaust "themselves with sympathy" (194), and as don Manuel says farewell to his people before he dies, they show their sympathy and emotion: "dio la bendicion al pueblo, llorando las mujeres y los ninos y no pocos hombres" (140).

When San Manuel is seen as the powerful echo of the most ancient Greek tragedy that it is, the reasons why don Manuel could not share with his people his lack of faith in the afterlife and the God that ensures it become apparent. (13) Had he done so, the psychological function of the tragic hero, his relationship with the community/chorus, and the rhetorical and emotional integrity of Unamuno's text, would have been lost. From this perspective, don Manuel's parishioners had a very specific role to play: that of chorus. A Greek chorus in the most ancient sense of the term is not supposed to be a collection of ethical subjects in the modern sense. (14) It is a homogeneous group of individuals surrounding an extraordinary figure, the hero, who depend on his deeds and words for their own survival, and that is the position of the people of Valverde de Lucerna with respect to don Manuel. A critical assessment of San Manuel based on the wish that don Manuel engage his parishioners in a conversation about his state of faith--as if they were modern ethical subjects seems an unreasonable imposition on the text. Such expectation brings to mind what Pio Baroja identified as a frequent critical error: "juzgar una iglesia gotica con las reglas del arte griego" (4:313).

Finally, as hero and saint, don Manuel embodies simultaneously an ethos of the past and of the present. The priest of Valverde de Lucerna represents an ethos of the past because, according to Sloterdijk, in our own culture: "la individualizacion elevada ... [no es] una circunstancia tipicamente moderna.... El sentido de individuacion en la era moderna es, mas bien, hundirse en la ambiguedad del propio Yo" (68). Thus, the person that "soporta lo insoportable, se ha convertido para los individuos de la actualidad en un extrano de los pies a la cabeza. Su heroico sufrimiento no tiene ningun vinculo con la moderna desazon en la cultura" (68). Don Manuel, like a modern Prometheus, endures the suffering and travails of the saint and the hero with whom contemporary culture maintains a difficult relationship. Yet, at the same time, don Manuel is also a modern hero because he embodies the new ethos brought about by the 18th century, an ethos that steers culture away from God and towards what is strictly human. The ideal of the saint and the hero is not divine any longer but "los mejores ejemplares de su propia especie ... solo hombres" (Sloterdijk 48; my emphasis). Thus, for instance, don Manuel understands two pivotal items of the old ethos within strictly human parameters: Christ and the idea of Paradise. Don Manuel's humanization of Christ can, in fact, be seen in rational (and very Hegelian) terms in order for his deeds to have full meaning. Don Manuel needs to produce a double movement: on the one hand, he identifies with the idealized master--Christ--and borrows the master's dignity for himself; on the other hand, don Manuel needs to thoroughly humanize Christ to fully possess the dignity of his own work, and by doing so, Christ himself is given meaning in reference to don Manuel (Hegel 117-19). Finally, as modern hero, don Manuel restores the idea of the Romantic, earthly Paradise: "Consonantly, the restored paradise of the Apocalypse will not be a location outside this world to which we will be transferred after death; it will be this world itself, as experienced by our redeemed and glorified senses in our earthly experience" (Abrams 53). As don Manuel says to Angela: "Cree en el cielo, en el cielo que vemos. Miralo" (114; my emphasis).

III. PERFORMANCE, RITUAL, AND PLAY

We have seen that don Manuel meets the requirements that a moral philosopher like Urmson deems essential to be considered a saint. For don Manuel, the greatest saint is Christ who, according to the priest, also lost his faith in immortality. As the priest confesses to Lazaro: "uno de los mas grandes santos, acaso el mayor, habia muerto sin creer en la otra vida" (143). With respect to the realm of heroism, San Manuel as text follows the model set by the most ancient Greek tragedy: there is a tragic hero (don Manuel), a chorus (the people of Valverde de Lucerna), and a character who splits off from don Manuel (Lazaro)--as the new figure that Aeschylus introduced to make "dialogue possible" (McGowan 30). As in the case of sainthood, Christ also becomes the heroic model after whom don Manuel is cast in Unamuno's text. As Freud says, Christ is the prototypical example of the suffering, tragic hero because he takes on the tragic guilt that relieves the Chorus--his people, humanity --from theirs. Examples of this sort of heroic behavior are frequent in all mythologies but, as Freud observes, Greek tragedy and the Passion of Christ are paramount performances in this regard:

   In Greek tragedy the special subject-matter of the performance was
   the sufferings of the divine goat, Dionysus, and the lamentations
   of the goats who were his followers and who identified themselves
   with him. That being so, it is easy to understand how drama, which
   had become extinct, was kindled into fresh life in the Middle Ages
   around the Passion of Christ. (194)

In a text like San Manuel so rooted in the tragic tradition--the word tragoidia means "goat-song" (Powell 68; my emphasis)--the divine goat and the goats that follow him are subtly, but clearly, evoked as don Manuel celebrates the presence of "una zagala, una cabrera," who becomes the very image of an everlasting performative tradition of which Greek tragedy and the Passion are chief examples: "parece como si ... esa zagala hubiese estado ahi siempre, y como esta, y cantando como esta" (129; my emphasis). The singing goatherd surrounded by her goats that don Manuel celebrates becomes the symbolic link between Greek tragedy honoring the suffering of Dionysus--that the tragic hero re-creates symbolically--and the sufferings of Christ as hero whose tragedy don Manuel reenacts. If the suffering of the divine goat of classical culture shown in the "goat song"--that is, in tragedy turns in the Middle Ages into the drama performed in the Passion of Christ, Valverde de Lucerna, a "villa feudal y medieval" (120), becomes the general stage where the redeeming new passion (from the Latin passus, "sufrimiento") reenacted by don Manuel takes place. Through his "actions, interactions and relations" (Schechner 24) with his people don Manuel restores Christ's behavior as the greatest saint and tragic hero, and the text, as we know, associates them directly as "nuestros dos Cristos, el de esta Tierra y el de esta aldea" (135).

In Weltfremdheit, Peter Sloterdijk discusses how, from a frequent sense of abandonment and of existential pain, the saint and the hero assert their own "Yo" as they discover a destiny shaped to a great degree by the demiurgic power of discourse (32-4):

   Desde siempre fue la humanizacion un suceso en el que predicadores
   eminentes proponian a sus semejantes modelos de humanidad,
   historias ejemplares de los antepasados, los heroes, los santos....
   El que no ha oido nunca las historias de los dioses, heroes,
   santos, profetas y artistas es muy dificil que quiera o pueda ser
   un dios, heroe, santo, profeta o artista. El discurso ha de haberse
   referido a 'grandes hombres', en tercera persona, antes de que un
   individuo pueda dar en la ocurrencia de ser el mismo uno de
   semejantes sujetos....  Hubiera sido Alejandro Magno lo que fue, si
   nunca hubiera tenido noticia de los heroes de Homero?  Hubiera
   entrado Francisco de Asis en la leyenda si no hubiera sido
   entusiasta imitador de un hombre al que tuvo por el mas grande de
   todos los hombres? (40-2)

According to Sloterdijk, saintly and heroic subjectivities are possible because, after exposure to the stories of saints and heroes, individual selves take them as examples for their own behavior (42). This adoption of someone else's "El/Ella" by a "Yo"--"donde El estuvo, he de estar Yo" (44)--and the substitution of a "yo, hasta ahora trivial" by an exemplary "El/Ella" implies for Sloterdijk an understanding of life as a "leap": "semejante individuo existe solo como salto" (45; my emphasis). (15) In the same sense, Savater reminds us that "Aristoteles insiste repetidas veces en que las virtudes no pueden ser definidas ni aprendidas abstractamente, sino que han de ser imitadas de la conducta del hombre excelente, el spoudaios" (168). This "imitation" of extraordinary behaviors is a special case of common restorations of behavior that make everyday life possible. According to contemporary performance theory, human life occurs only as "performed actions that people train to do, that they practice and rehearse" (Schechner 22). Performance as restored behavior is "physical or verbal action that is not-for-the-first-time, prepared, or rehearsed," and it includes "a vast range of actions. In fact, all behavior is restored behavior--all behavior consists of recombining bits of previously behaved behaviors. Of course, most of the time people aren't aware that they are doing such thing. People just 'live life'" (Schechner 28). Don Manuel's moral status as saint and hero results from a restored behavior that he adjusts to his circumstances. His performances as saint and as tragic hero are "not-for-the-first-time" types of motivation or conduct: Christ, for instance, had set a very recognizable model to be followed before don Manuel. In fact, from the perspective of performance theory and of the humanization of Christ in San Manuel, it is logical to assume that Christ himself restored a behavior that he learned from extraordinary people that came before him. In effect, if "performance in the restored behavior sense means never for the first time, always for the second to nth time: twice-behaved behavior" (Schechner 29), Blasillo's imitation of don Manuel becomes the paradigm of human restoration of behavior. Devoid of understanding and intentionality beyond performance, the fool repeats don Manuel's words--in turn a repetition of those by Christ--in a moving fashion, accomplishing on others the rhetorical effects of the "original" and bringing to himself much joy: "Luego Blasillo el tonto iba repitiendo en tono patetico por las callejas y como en eco, el ' Dios mio, Dios mio!, porque me has abandonado?', y de tal manera que al oirselo se les saltaban a todos las lagrimas, con gran regocijo del bobo por su triunfo imitativo" (102; my emphasis). In the same way that Saint Francis of Assisi, as Sloterdijk says, is "entusiasta imitador" of Christ, and don Manuel imitates Christ, Blasillo's repetition of don Manuel's and Christ's words makes him a Christ-like figure and has an equivalent effect on the audience as that of don Manuel. In fact, Unamuno's text associates Christ, don Manuel, and Blasillo explicitly: "Y en aquel momento paso por la calle Blasillo el bobo, clamando su ' Dios mio, Dios mio!, porque me has abandonado?' Y Lazaro se estremecio creyendo oir la voz de don Manuel, acaso la de Nuestro Senor Jesucristo" (122).

Whether we know the source of a behavior or not--in don Manuel's case the source is Christ as the greatest saint and archetypal tragic hero--restored behavior is always "me behaving as if I were someone else" (Schechner 28):

   The fact that there are multiple "me's" in every person is not a
   sign of derangement but the way things are. The ways one performs
   one's selves are connected to the ways people perform others in
   dramas, dances, and rituals. In fact, if people did not ordinarily
   come into contact with their multiple selves, the act of acting and
   the experience of trance possession would not be possible. (28)

Beyond the most common, every day behaviors that don Manuel--like everyone else--learns and carries out to live in society, don Manuel performs at least two recognizable and inseparable "me's" that make his story, as told by Angela Carballino, remarkable. There is a "me" that he displays in front of the community. This is the don Manuel that behaves as if he were in sync with his people's faith, the one that performs the ritual mass on Good Friday, the one whose performance is the same as that of acting on a stage--he performs "restored restored behavior" so to speak (Schechner 28). This "me" does not indicate either hypocrisy or "derangement" even if it is an indefinite behavior with no foreseeable end: it is an essential aspect of who don Manuel is. If as a tragic hero, don Manuel has been compared to don Quijote (Cerezo 718)--a character who has also been interpreted as a great actor himself--16 this public "me" of don Manuel is also close to don Juan, the figure that, according to Unamuno, is always on the stage: "[Don Juan] es el personaje mas eminentemente teatral, representativo, historico, en que esta siempre representado, es decir, representandose a si mismo" (12: 866). (17) This is indeed the case with don Manuel and his public persona. In addition to this public part, don Manuel shows another, more private "me" that we see in his interaction with those who know his "true" beliefs, Angela and Lazaro. Although from a restrictive ethical perspective it could be argued that this private "me" of don Manuel reflects who he really is--thus delegitimizing his public self--both "me's" of don Manuel are equally important to understand his complexity and reality as a "living" character, and certainly to fully grasp his moral standing as saint and hero. Gayana Jurkevich is right when she says that "Manuel lives his duality simultaneously ['his believing and disbelieving selves']" (136). Thus, the notion of the several "me's" within each one of us--particularly when seen from a pragmatic understanding of existence--can be helpful in clarifying Glannon's perplexity at how "one can propagate a conceptual scheme that is incompatible with his own belief and avoid being overcome by a paralyzing sense of absurdity" (317). It can also explain how don Manuel represents, as Butt says, another sincere aspect of Unamuno himself, who sometimes defended truth at any cost, and how others promoted the perpetuation of myth--as Unamuno does in San Manuel (53). (18)

Don Manuel's public "me" manifests itself in three specific instances in San Manuel. The first is the celebration of the mass, the second is the prayer of the Credo, and the third introduces the reader to another aspect of performance--play which shows don Manuel under another guise as performer when he plays the tamboril so the youth of Valverde de Lucerna can dance.

The mass restores the sacrifice, death, and resurrection of Christ. O. B. Hardison says that the mass presents "an elaborate drama with definite roles assigned to the participants and a plot whose ultimate significance is nothing less than the 'renewal of the whole plan of redemption' through the re-creation of the 'life, death, and resurrection' of Christ"; and he adds that "the drama enacted has a coherent plot," while "the Church ... [becomes] a theater" (39-40). In Unamuno's text, the priest gathers his people in church to perform the mass of Good Friday, where don Manuel and the rest of the community perform this ritual commemorating the crucifixion and death of Christ:

   Y cuando en el sermon de Viernes Santo clamaba aquello de: " Dios
   mio, Dios mio!,  porque me has abandonado?", pasaba por el pueblo
   todo un temblor hondo como por sobre las aguas del lago en cierzo
   de hostigo. Y era como si oyesen a Nuestro Senor Jesucristo mismo,
   como si la voz brotara de aquel viejo crucifijo a cuyos pies tantas
   generaciones de madres habian depositado sus congojas. Como que una
   vez, al oirlo su madre, la de don Manuel, no pudo contenerse, y
   desde el suelo del templo, en el que se sentaba, grito: " Hijo
   mio!". Y fue un chaparron de lagrimas entre todos. (101-2)

To don Manuel's cry of absence--God the Father abandoning the Son--the priest's mother's cry asserts a presence--that of don Manuel himself who fills the divine absence--while the community experiences catharsis. Furthermore, the cry of don Manuel's mother restoring the pain of the "Dolorosa" (102) epitomizes the essence of ritual, where a mythical story can be evoked and performed--"memories in action" (Schechner 545)--and where people are taken "into a 'second reality,' separate from ordinary life. This reality is one where people can become selves other than their daily selves" (Schechner 45).

Rituals also unify people through their transformational power (Schechner 45). This unifying effect is most evident in San Manuel at the prayer of the Credo, as the entire community merge in the performative affirmation of a shared faith:

   Habia un santo ejercicio que introdujo en el culto popular y es
   que, reuniendo en el templo a todo el pueblo, hombres y mujeres,
   viejos y ninos, unas mil personas, recitabamos al unisono, el
   Credo: "Creo en Dios Padre Todopoderoso, Creador del Cielo y de la
   Tierra..." y lo que sigue. Y no era un coro, sino una sola voz, una
   voz simple y unida, fundidas todas en una y haciendo como una
   montana, cuya cumbre perdida a las veces en nubes, era don Manuel.
   (103; my emphasis)

The ritual prayer of the Credo communicates doctrine as it creates the type of group cohesion that Victor Turner calls communitas: "communitas happens when a congregation or group catches fire in the Spirit," it "abolishes status," and one feels as if "there's a little bit of you in each of me" (Schechner 62-63). A spontaneous communitas usually happens in a sacred space, and the participants are all considered equal, "reinforcing a sense of 'we are all in this together'" (Schechner 63). The sense of communitas created during the prayer of the Credo epitomizes people's contentment at life, the joy that results from their "unanimidad de sentido" (123). This communal ritual that don Manuel himself establishes exemplifies what Carlos Paris has called "la conciencia que se nutre de la comunidad" (211).

Referring to don Manuel's "actions, interactions, and relations" throughout the text, Angela speaks of "su divino, su santisimo juego" (146; my emphasis). According to Schechner, another definition of performance is "ritualized behavior conditioned/permeated by play" (79). While ritual is more earnest, play is more supple and lenient. The celebration of the Good Friday mass and the prayer of the Credo are the more serious, enforcing kinds of rituals that don Manuel promotes, but the priest also encourages and takes part in more permissive types of performances:

   Por estar con el pueblo, y sobre todo con el mocerio y la
   chiquilleria, solia ir al baile. Y mas de una vez se puso en el a
   tocar el tamboril para que los mozos y las mozas bailasen, y esto,
   que en otro hubiera parecido grotesca profanacion del sacerdocio,
   en el tomaba un sagrado caracter y como un rito religioso. Sonaba
   el Angelus, dejaba el tamboril y el palillo, se descubria, y todos
   con el, y rezaba: 'El angel del Senor anuncio a Maria: Ave
   Maria ...' " (107; my emphasis).

Here don Manuel participates in a playful activity: he plays the tamboril, a traditional Spanish instrument associated in the popular imagination with happy events--weddings--as shown by the proverbs "La olla sin cebolla es como boda sin tamboril" o "No hay olla sin tocino ni boda sin tamborino." (19) Thus, when he plays the tamboril he mixes lightness and seriousness, and what could be seen, as Angela says, "como una grotesca profanacion del sacerdocio" acquires "un sagrado caracter y como un rito religioso." Then, when this "ritualized behavior . . . permeated by play" ends, a new ritual of a more serious kind begins: the prayer of the Angelus. Mixing play and ritual and shifting between more playful and more serious rituals show how the two phenomena are the two sides of the same coin. As Don Handelman says: "Ritual and play are shadow images of one another in the kinds of messages they transmit to the social order. They are analogous states of cognition and perception, whose messages are complementary for the resolution of the ongoing, deviant, domain of ordinary reality" (190). In fact, don Manuel's actions throughout the text--whether they are more rigid or looser could be seen as play, even in the aspects connected with his saintly and heroic behavior. Angela understands this when she talks about don Manuel's "santisimo juego" (146). As Schechner indicates, heroes--and the same could be said of saints--create "their own rules as they went along.... Their playing was world-making, either cosmically or socially" (95), which is what don Manuel does: he constantly creates the rules according to which he and his community play a game whose rules originate in him as he restores another's behavior and adjusts it to his personal and social circumstances. This happens when he emphasizes the human aspects of his mission in Valverde de Lucerna, instead of the usual obligations of the parroco; he humanizes the figure of Christ emphasizing some of his deeds and words; he institutes the ritual of the Credo; and, as we have just seen, when he plays the tamboril, he gives this playful activity a solemn and ritualistic character before he engages in the serious ritual prayer of the Angelus. Each one of don Manuel's actions, when seen as play, "is full of creative world-making as well as lying, illusion, and deceit" (Schechner 82). Their objective, as Johan Huizinga notes about play, is to "[promote] the formation of social grouping" (13) through an illusion that will bring don Manuel's parishioners appreciation of life within a sense of communitas. Ultimately, as Brian Sutton-Smith says, "there is nothing more characteristic of human achievement than the creation of illusory cultural and theoretical worlds" (54). This is what don Manuel does as saint and hero through his performance: he creates a world and its rules as he goes along--a world that, in typical Unamunian fashion, brings meaning to the life of the demiurge and, by doing so, creates the creator. (20)

Don Manuel is a powerful synthetic character: he is a saint and a tragic hero, he performs "me's" associated with a heteronomous ethic and an autonomous one, he is an individual ethical subject unthinkable outside the world that he himself creates through a myth that he cannot believe but that, paradoxically, he needs for himself as well. Also, don Manuel unifies an ethos of the past--the ability of bearing the unbearable--and the modern ethos that humanizes the divine. This convergence of past and present ethos, and his restoration of Christ's own performance as the greatest saint and the archetypal tragic hero project him as a paradigm for the iteration of extraordinary deeds. To use Max Scheler's words from his Formalism in Ethics, don Manuel the performer shows that exceptional behaviors, as well as the ideas that underlie them, "can in principle come to the fore in any individual person" (587).

Finally, don Manuel challenges the official discourse of the Church, and this is the reason why Angela fears that her memoir might fall into the hands of the Bishop of Renada (148). He also defies the traditional philosophical conceptions of what counts as true and false, which is the reason why he is such a controversial character among critics. His example emphasizes religion (any religion) as an activity that can enhance life--and not philosophy/theology (142). His serious and playful acting, his imaginative world-making, and the fact that he is configured as character in a pre-Platonic fashion (the most ancient Greek tragedy) make him an embodiment of the poet--from poetes, "maker, creator"--that Plato himself wanted to ban from his ideal, philosophical republic in Book X of the Republic. (21) In fact, don Manuel as poet represents another "me" of Unamuno himself who not only believed with the English High Romantics that the most powerful source of true knowledge was poetry and fiction, but who once told Ortega y Gasset that he only wanted to be a poet "Y usted sabe que es todo lo que quiero ser, si lo soy de veras" (Epistolario 48-49). From this perspective, San Manuel Bueno, martir reaffirms poetry, world-making, and the emotions--suffering and joy--as the true source of ethics and the foundation of saintly and heroic behavior in the modern world.

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Francisco LaRubia-Prado

Georgetown University

NOTES

(1) Only Walter Glannon and Ciriaco Moron Arroyo comment on the issue of sainthood. I shall make reference to their views in my discussion of don Manuel's attributed sanctity.

(2) The exception is Pedro Cerezo Galan, who rightly refers to don Manuel as a "tragic hero" as a result of Unamuno's notion that the tragic soul reflects the tension between its desire to believe in the afterlife and its inability to do so. Carlos Blanco Aguinaga has called don Manuel an "extrano heroe" que "cree no ser heroe, y lo es" (296).

(3) John Butt points out that even though don Manuel does not believe in the afterlife, the character does not say that he does not believe in God (46), although it is hard to see the consequences of that distinction in Butt's discussion of San Manuel. Believing in God, while rejecting individual immortality, makes sense when one sees don Manuel as a reflection of Unamuno's Pantheism. In Alegorias de la voluntad, I have argued that Unamuno's religious dilemma was not between believing in God and not believing in God, but between his deep-seated Pantheism--which denied him individual immortality--and his will (as well as inability) to believe in the Christian God that promises the afterlife (111-22).

(4) The shift between his heteronomous and autonomous phases is dramatic because the reader is not exposed to a "liminal," transitional phase. We do not see "a transformation taking place" (Schechner 58) or, as Victor Turner says, a "betwixt and between" state (The Ritual 95). Instead, he is presented as an autonomous human being, but one who wishes he could abide by a heteronomous ethics.

(5) A Christian notion of sainthood understands the phenomenon as a growth and striving "for holiness by cooperating with the indwelling Holy Spirit until they arrive at complete conformity to Christ" (Grenz 105-6).

(6) See "De las parroquias, de los parrocos y de los vicarios pastorales," Codigo de derecho canonico (358-82).

(7) On the opposite side is Antonio Regalado who sees don Manuel as "fundamentalmente egoista" (204). Frances Wyers sees don Manuel's position as ultimately selfish: his "isolation conceals itself behind good deeds...; desperation underlies altruistic dedication. He worked for the peace and happiness of the villagers because of his own fears" (107).

(8) For David Turner, don Manuel "declares himself the creation of God, and so, as God does not exist, the creation of the force of events of Fate; above all, a man with no control over his nature" (127). Thus, not having control over his nature makes his control over his actions even more valuable. Ciriaco Moron Arroyo points out that don Manuel's concept of santidad was already central in Del sentimiento tragico de la vida as the actions that lead to causing joy in others (136-38). For the critic, don Manuel's santidad is fundamentally understood "como servicio desinteresado a los demas, como alegria para mitigar a la humanidad el delito de haber nacido" (138).

(9) In Cerezo Galan's interpretation, don Manuel is a hero like don Quijote but with one difference: "El nombre de Manuel esta elegido por el Emanuel biblico, obviamente 'Manuel Bueno' quiere designar un destino heroico, cristiano, afin al de don Quijote. Y, sin embargo, en otro sentido, el cura parroco es la contrafigura del caballero de la fe. Pero su martirio es el mismo, como anverso y reverso de un mismo destino tragico" (723). But while don Quijote tries to escape nothingness, in don Manuel "se impone, en sentido contrario, la seduccion de la nada ante la desesperacion de alcanzar el todo. Utopismo y nadismo" (Cerezo 723).

(10) For instance, in Greek mythology, the jealous Hera tricked Semele, one of Zeus' lovers into asking the god to show himself to her in all his splendor as "King of Heaven." Zeus, who had solemnly sworn by the river Styx that he would grant to Semele whatever she desired, could not break his oath to her, and the god "came as she had asked, and before that awful glory of burning light she died" (Hamilton 54-55).

(11) Although he does not refer to don Manuel as hero, Jeffrey W. Robbins has referred to don Manuel's taking others' guilt upon himself: "In contrast to Kierkegaard, therefore, he takes on the guilt and assumes the unbelief of others. He asserts a truth that he himself could not bring himself to believe" (15).

(12) "Para don Miguel el yo ex-futuro era el yo abortado, el que pudo haber tenido vida si la personalidad que se dio en un momento concreto del ayer hubiera emprendido un camino distinto del que realmente emprendio" (Llano 44).

(13) For some critics, the fact that don Manuel does not reveal his lack of faith in God is a clear engano: Antonio Regalado sees don Manuel parishioners as the "objeto de un engano por el que los somete a la relacion de senorio y servidumbre, que mantiene los problemas planteados sin darles solucion" (202). Frances Wyers stresses don Manuel's "commitment to deception" (110): "the priest's deception about his inner self guarantees the preservation of his legendary self' (110). For Sanchez Barbudo, don Manuel's engano mirrors Unamuno's own engano to his readers (233). For Cerezo Galan, however, "el engano tiene mas que ver aqui con el tema romantico de la ficcion/ilusion que con el ilustrado de la mentira politica. Es por lo demas obvio que don Manuel no utiliza el engano como instrumento de dominio, sino como forma de consolacion, porque entiende, como pensador tragico, que el mal del hombre es haber nacido. Y la religion es, en este contexto, el unico pharmakon contra el sin-sentido de la existencia" (718).

(14) The ethical subject in the modern sense is defined by the kind of recognition that s/he receives. Thus, Savater talks about: "el reconocimiento en el otro: este es el que la etica propone, no por otra razon, sino porque responde--y es lo unico que responde--a lo que el hombre primordial y radicalmente quiere. Por este reconocimiento en el otro vemos en el nuestra propia autodeterminacion y queremos su querer como objeto infinito. No le consideramos como algo acotado, clasificado, dado de una vez por todas y apto solamente para determinado uso, sino como una disponibilidad sin medida, como una capacidad creadora que transgrede y metamorfosea toda forma, con sublime espontaneidad y mas alla de todo calculo: la aceptacion de su libertad respecto a mi proporciona una base inatacable a mi propia libertad" (124).

(15) I am using the Spanish edition of Wetfremdheit--Extranamiento del mundo. I follow the translation of Sloterdijk's book by Eduardo Gil Bera in the capitalization of the personal pronouns.

(16) For an analysis of Don Quijote as performance see Mark Van Doren, Don Quixote's Profession; Gonzalo Torrente Ballester, El Quijote como juego y otros trabajos criticos; and Francisco LaRubia-Prado, "Don Quijote as Performance: The Sierra Morena Adventure" (335-56).

(17) The important thing in the case of don Juan for Unamuno is: "la necesidad psiquica, espiritual, de representarse, y con ello de eternizarse, de vivir en el teatro que es la historia de la Humanidad" (12: 868). Certainly, don Juan and don Manuel share, by their being on the stage, the need for "eternizarse" in history.

(18) In this sense, critics who identify don Manuel and Unamuno (Regalado 204, Sanchez Barbudo 231-32) are also right in the sense that there is an authentic connection between both since don Manuel represents one of Unamuno's "me's," but don Manuel is only one of those possible "me's." One has to disagree with Regalado when he considers San Manuel "una ficcion enganosa porque el protagonista, San Manuel, vive y actua con dos conciencias, una real y verdadera, para si, y otra irreal y falsa, para los demas" (202).

(19) His promotion of dancing evokes Nietzsche's Zaratustra: "I would only believe in a god who knew how to dance" (Zaratustra 29); or: "Only in the dance do I know how to speak the parables of the highest things" . . . (Zarathustra, 87).

(20) The playful don Manuel reminds us that "the pleasure in playing is autotelic, coming not from what it 'earns' but from enjoying the actions in themselves" (Schechner 91), which is another reason to stress that his sense of duty and his genuine suffering are part and parcel with the most basic sense of finalidad that is part of any deliberately experienced life.

(21) For a discussion of how Unamuno challenges Plato's expulsion of the poets from the republic as he poses an ethical agenda based on the emotions in Vida de don Quijote y Sancho see my Unamuno y la vida como ficcion (149-63).

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Author:	LaRubia-Prado, Francisco
Publication:	Hispanofila
Date:	Jun 1, 2014
Words:	10751
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Topics:	Priests