Unamuno, Freud y Strindberg : los sueños en Amor y pedagogía y Niebla

Abstract

A number of critics have discussed the use of dreams in Niebla (1914), one of the best-known novels in Spanish literature. Some have contended that the dreams in Niebla are used to highlight a number of philosophical issues, e.g. God’s power over man or the author’s own existential worries. Others have claimed that the usage of dreams was inspired by Calderon’s play La vida es sueno (1635). This article shows that Unamuno resourced to dreams in his earlier novel Amor y pedagogıa (1902), where traces from Freud’s theories are patent, in order to challenge the notions of realism imposed by Realist novelists. In Amor y pedagogıa dreams connect reality with fantasy, and conscious thinking with unconscious thinking. In Niebla, Freudian notions of dream and reality herald Surrealism. Rather than borrowing from Calderon, dreams in Amor y pedagogıa and Niebla are a Modernist feature, employed before by Strindberg. A brief discussion of Strindberg’s Ett Dromspel (1901) shows that Unamuno’s Niebla aligns clearly with the Modernist tendencies.