On the 80th anniversary of the Spanish Republican exile – when thousands of Spaniards fled their country to escape the consequences of the Spanish Civil War – the Instituto Cervantes and the University of Strathclyde present a talk that celebrates and explores the thought of María Zambrano (Málaga 1904 – Madrid 1991), widely regarded as one of the most original Spanish philosophers of the twentieth century.
María Zambrano’s biggest contribution to intellectual history is her razón poética (poetic reason), that is, her unique attempt to overcome the limitations of the established framework of rationality. Her idiosyncratic use of language plays a central role within this alternative rationality.
This Spanish Republican thinker reclaims words from ordinary language such despertar (awakening), ensoñar (daydreaming), delirio (delirium) and aurora (dawn) and uses them to go beyond philosophy; to express the otherwise ineffable through the use of symbolism and metaphor, thus overcoming the limitations of discursive reason.
This series on María Zambrano invites participants to delve into her poetic reason, presenting an opportunity to reflect on the relationship between the image and the word, while also exploring pathways to better understand and perhaps even continue making poetic reason.