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La agonia del cristianismo. By Miguel de Unamuno. Ed. Victor Ouimette. Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1996. 188 pages.
In this concluding work of his illustrious scholarly career, the late professor Victor Ouimette not only offers a thoughtful, at moments brilliant, introduction to one of Unamuno's most defining books but also purges the Spanish-language text of errors that have persisted in one form or another since its publication in Madrid in June of 1931.
Yet more than mere misreadings or editorial lapses, these lingering textual deficiencies made oblique reference to the hampered circumstances under which Unamuno wrote the book during his Parisian exile. As Unamuno himself is careful to say, even though La agonia del cristianismo was conceived and written in Spanish, he did so with the French language and public in mind. Hence his appeal to Pascal and other prominent French figures and the avoidance of themes grounded purely in the collective Spanish experience. In this same candid vein he goes on to admit that without an awareness of certain social ard political conditions, most of which no longer prevailed in France and were always alien to Spain,...