ABSTRACT
The Spanish-American War of 1898 that pushed Spain out of Cuba and Puerto Rico is known in Iberian history as "el desastre." It is an experience that marked an artistic generation that is recognized as "la generación del '98." One member of this generation was Miguel de Unamuno, a leading philosopher and man of letters born in Bilbao and a professor at the Universidad de Salamanca, where he lived most of his life with the exception of the period he spent in exile as a result of his political opposition to the military leader Primo de Rivera. Unamuno wrote philosophical meditations, newspaper columns, poetry, and novels, such as Niebla (1914), Abel Sánchez (1917), and San Miguel Bueno, mártir (1933), as well as the meditation Of the Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations (1913). A leading figure in the existentialist movement, he spent his life debating the clash between faith and reason and pondering his belief in Christianity. This little-known poem, number 365 in Unamuno's Complete Works, was drafted on August 31, 1928, while Unamuno was in exile in the Canary Islands. It eulogizes Ladino, the language of Jews in Spain, and finds parallels with Spain's language.
