Zambrano, María

b. 1904, Vélez-Málaga; d. 1991, Madrid

   Philosopher

   In 1988, Zambrano became the first woman and first philosopher to receive the Cervantes Prize. Influenced by her father, a noted liberal pedagogue and socialist thinker, she lived from childhood at the centre of educational reform, later obtaining her doctorate with Spain's major philosophers— José Ortega y Gasset, Xavier Zubiri, Manuel García Morente—and participating in pro-Republican political activities which inspired her first book, Horizonte del liberalismo (Horizons of Liberalism). Later works emphasize "pure" philosophical inquiry rather than politics, but she remained true to the ideals of pacifism, humanitarian socialism and freedom. Los intelectuales en el drama de España (Intellectuals in Spain's Drama) is partly autobiographical, but forty-five years of post-war exile leave little imprint on her writing. Even such wartime works as Pensamiento y poesía en la vida española (Thought and Poetry in Spanish Life) and Filosofía y poesía (Philosophy and Poetry) reflect little of contemporary reality, but seek to elucidate similarities and differences between the two genres: she envisages philosophy as search and method, poetry as encounter. La agonía de Europa (Europe's Agony) does, however, reflect the global crisis of WWII. Hacia un saber sobre el alma (Towards Knowledge of the Soul) initiates lifelong metaphysical preoccupations, pursued in El hombre y lo divino (Humanity and the Divine), where she applies the method of "poetic reason" (her modification of Ortega y Gasset's "vital reason") to elucidating religious experience. Zambrano commented that the title "Humanity and the Divine" would aptly suit her complete work. Especially significant are dreams, viewed in El sueño creador (Creative Dreaming) as pregnant with creative potential and revelatory of time's origins. Her theory of dreams reappears in España, sueño y verdad (Spain, Dream and Truth) which pursues connections between dreams and metaphysical time, reviving Baroque concepts of life as dream, death as awakening. Claros del bosque (Clearings in the Forest) treats themes of being, presence and reality, concealment and revelation, immanent knowledge and passive epiphany, united by ontological seeking.

   In 1981, Zambrano received the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature, and following an honorary doctorate from the University of Málaga, established her residence in Madrid in 1984. Persona y democracies (Person and Democracy), contrasting individual and collectivity, and De la Aurora (Concerning Dawn), among the more significant works of her final years, continue the quest for knowledge metaphorically and poetically as she moves towards mystic passivity, emphasizing the intuitive and spiritual over the analytical, revelation over reason, ultimately closer to Unamuno than to Ortega y Gasset.

   See also: philosophy

   Further reading

   - Abellán, J.L. (1967) "María Zambrano: La “razón poética” en marcha", in Filosofía española en América (1936-1966), Madrid: Guadarrama, pp. 169–89 (discussion by a leading critic of Zambrano's place among exiled philosophers, "poetic reason" and connections with Ortega y Gasset).

   - Donahue, D. (1993) "National History as Autobiography: María Zambrano's Delirio y destino", Monographic Review 9: 116–24 (discussion of Zambrano's lyric memoir of her involvement at age 20 with the Republican intellectual scene).

   - Johnson, R. (1998) "The Context and Achievement of Delirium and Destiny", in M.Zambrano, Delirium and Destiny. A Spaniard in her Twenties, trans. C. Maier, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1998, pp. 215–35.

   —— (1996) "María Zambrano's Theory of Literature as Knowledge and Contingency",

   - Hispania 79, 2 (1996): 215–21. Marí, A. (1989) "Poesía y verdad", Insula 44, 509: 1–2 (studies her treatment of truth and relationship to antecedents in Ortega y Gasset).

   - Ortega Muñoz, J.F., (ed.) (1982) María Zambrano o la metafísica recuperada, Vélez Málaga: Delegación de Cultura (a collection of critical tributes to Zambrano published by the government of her native city).

   - Pérez, J. (1999) "La razón de la sinrazón: Unamuno, Machado and Ortega in the thought of María Zambrano", Hispania 82, 4 (1999): 58–67.

   JANET PÉREZ