No. These characters are not arguments
on legs. They truly are men and women of "flesh and bones," human,
terribly human.
In thus emphasizing a particular feature in their nature, Unamuno
imparts to his creations a certain deformity which savours of romantic
days. Yet Unamuno is not a romanticist, mainly because Romanticism was
an esthetic attitude, and his attitude is seldom purely esthetic. For
all their show of passion, true Romanticists seldom gave their real
selves to their art. They created a stage double of their own selves for
public exhibitions. They sought the picturesque. Their form was lyrical,
but their substance was dramatic. Unamuno, on the contrary, even though
he often seeks expression in dramatic form, is essentially lyrical. And
if he is always intense, he never is exuberant. He follows the Spanish
tradition for restraint--for there is one, along its opposite tradition
for grandiloquence--and, true to the spirit of it, he seeks the maximum
of effect through the minimum of means. Then, he never shouts. Here is
an example of his quiet method, the rhythmical beauty of which is
unfortunately almost untranslatable:
"Y asi pasaron dias de llanto y de negrura hasta que las lagrimas fueron
yendose hacia adentro y la casa fue derritiendo los negrores" (_Niebla_)
(And thus, days of weeping and mourning went by, till the tears began to
flow inward and the blackness to melt in the home).
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