Art Echo: María Zambrano and the Kouroi Relief

The aim of this paper is to examine the role of early Greek thought in the work of Maria Zambrano, a Spanish critic and philosopher who lived most of her life in exile (1939 - 1984). Zambrano incorporates Greek concepts into her writing as a means to question conventional Philosophy, not as an aim or telos, but as an uncomfortable dwelling that paradoxically leads into suspension and doubt. Key concepts and artistic figures emerge in her seemingly illogical reasoning (‘razon poetica’) such as those arising from her work on the Greek ‘Kouroi.’ Zambrano refuses fixity in Philosophy, where logic and method can be rigorously apprehended. She gracefully takes another turn: by elucidating ancient wisdom through allusive metaphors and ancient ruins, she resists direct pathways into History and Truth. Her style takes after her thinking and can often meander into the realms of enigma, mysticism, and other unconventional forms of thought such as intuition and dreams.

In 1948, the then relatively unknown Spanish philosopher María Zambrano (1904Zambrano ( -1991) posed a bold, but important question: -Ha existido en verdad Filosofía en España?‖ (-El problema‖ 3). 1 Directed primarily at the prominent investigations of Menéndez y Pelayo and Ortega y Gasset, who had both given detailed answers in their published work, the question paradoxically neither seeks to affirm nor negate a response: -Y tal pregunta produce una perplejidad de la que no podemos salir por una simple negación apresurada, ni tampoco vencer por una afirmación inspirada por el entusiasmo.‖ Zambrano's query, like most of her philosophical thinking, does not demand a clear answer. Her razón poética refuses to elicit one. 2 Instead, she dwells in the perplexity of abstract yet familiar concepts such as ‗Love,' ‗Light,' ‗Smile,' and ‗Heart' originating in archaic Greek thought. 3 From the shadows of these concepts (such as Love) there is an affective recognition or perception of understanding (what she later calls ‗a [visual] clearing'), a gleam into the cornerstone of Philosophy: -Si acudimos a los orígenes de la Filosofía en Grecia bien pronto encontramos que es el amor, lo que reside en su fondo primero y en su meta última‖ (-El problema‖ 3). Zambrano embraces an intuitive interpretation of aletheia, a long remembered truth, in a move against the systematic philosophy of logos. 4 If Spanish philosophy exists, it can only be found amidst the mysteries of pre-Socratic wisdom, where sacred secrets of ancient reasoning lie.
Archaic secrets, which cannot surface easily, resist direct philosophical logic.
Instead, María Zambrano turns to early Greek thought as a means to displace [desviar] prescriptive knowledge with another pathway, that is, with a radical interpretation of sophrosyne, arcanely defined as ‗supreme temperance' or ‗ultimate self-knowledge.' 5 -Quién soy yo? Cuál es mi realidad verdadera de persona viviente? La Filosofía comenzó en Grecia cuando frente a la aceptación de la realidad de las cosas surgió la pregunta sobre el ser verdadero escondido en ellas‖ (-La liberación‖ 109). To explain Zambrano is to move toward a particularised metaphorical language of oneiric ‗dark matter' [logos oscuro] of lost Greek gods and occult knowledge that ultimately cannot be firmly grasped at [drassomai] but deeply and intuitively felt. Zambrano chooses an abstract and poetic language to grant her mobility to point to (but never define) that no-place, as she so describes the unknown within, the recess of her soul [ínferos]; metaphors in flux guide us to what remains of an (dis)embodied aesthetics of existence in the mysteries of art, beauty, drama, and poetry. 6 In attempting to sidestep the question of (Spanish) philosophy, Zambrano turns to an archaic interpretation of sophrosyne, the one feared precisely by Plato for its ambiguous relation to the errors and illusions of mania: -es una meditación figurada, dramática, en la que el error, las ilusiones de nuestra mente y los engaños del mundo se van descubriendo como en un teatro, el ‗gran teatro del mundo,' con gran sencillez‖ (Obras 304). 7 When the Oracle of Delphi greets those who enter her temple with aporiatic injunctions, ‗Know thyself!' and ‗Everything in moderation!', she riddles the meaning of self-knowledge with bafflement and doubt. For how can we know our world and ourselves without giving in to all forms of knowledge, not just reason and restraint but passion, anguish, affectivity, and perplexity? Zambrano interprets archaic wisdom as a form of radical concealment [ocultación radical]-or what she alludes to as ‗Enigma' or ‗Smile'-that tenuously reveals as it also suspends the location of incipient (sacred) knowledge once tragically sacrificed but lying in wait amongst discarded ruins and humble art forms (El hombre 31,32). 8 Unlike philosophy, these semi-hidden places of knowledge (of painting, of poetry, of sculpture) persist without a télos or clear beginning. They comprise an aesthetic tradition independent from historical interruption or rationalist thought. For María Zambrano, the very lack of a cohesive system opens up a realm of possibility for discovering ‗Intellect' or ‗Nous.' One needs to accept other entryways of knowledge, not usually associated with philosophy, such as intuition, admiration, bewilderment, inner resistance, or ‗epiphany' (Johnson,. 9 Zambrano shifts the solid ground of methodical reasoning towards a precarious mystical or pagan territory. Truth (or the Light) is not what matters most, but dwelling in and garnering feelings for the shadows behind objects. To discover the correct route to sophrosyne is to be guided by the contemplative act of projective transcendence. 10 By meditating on ‗ambiguities' [ambigüedades] or by allowing feelings of ‗perplexity' [perplejidad] to arise, we can learn to perceive and react to an ancient poetics forcibly denied to us and gifted only to the gods. 11 To recall some thoughts from one of her mentors, Xavier Zubiri, the locus of knowledge may lie in ‗Enigma,' an act not easily named or found, but always pointing to a form of reality: -Enigma es ante todo un modo de significar lo real, pero no declarando lo que es sino tan sólo indicándolo significativamente, como lo hace un oráculo. Así dice Heráclito que el oráculo de Delfos ni dice ni oculta nada, sino que solamente lo significa. Este modo de manifestar la realidad es lo que se llama aínigma, enigma‖ (97). Zambrano actively searches for the Enigma of knowledge, whether it be in a poem by Dulce María Loynaz or in the music of Andrés Segovia, by contemplating ancient Greek sources to help guide her through this cryptic knowledge. She engages with Plato, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Seneca and Sophocles, among many others. 12 She reaches even farther back when she metaphorically seems to dig through the rubble, as an anthropologist-philosopher, gathering cultural wisdom from old Greek ruins, and-particularly important to this study-from those sculptures or parts of masks, ancient corporal artefacts serving as divine precursors for understanding later art and (Spanish) poetic forms.
Zambrano notes in her mature work that it is particularly the Greek Kouroi, the adolescent ancient statues, with their intriguing smile that serve as mediums [mediadores] between ancient secrets and modern ones. They can be thought of as material representations of Enigma. How not to avoid their performative slight grin, pointing intrinsically (and affectively) to ambiguities of secrets not yet divulged? 13 The smile is repeated, as in a mirror, to recall Horace-we smile backand yet we still do not know when gazing at the spectacle or statue what precisely is being withheld: La escultura que encontró su momento de equilibrio en el arte arcaico griego, en la sonrisa-de los Kouroi de la aurora de Grecia-sonrisa que no es solar, que, por el contrario, es como todas las sonrisas señaladas, del reino de la aurora. Así la misma sonrisa, que llaman ambigua, de la Gioconda, y, sobre todo, la de los ángeles románicos de ciertas catedrales, tal la de aquel ángel de Reims o del que, en Chartres, ofrece el tan matemático cuadrante solar, como una gracia, como ofrenda, no como imposición, mas sí como un conocimiento.  The smile may hint at other things beyond what remains in art and old relics. La Gioconda smiles but we do not know why. She lures us into a myriad of speculations. She may be smiling in response to our own fear of death or that simply she is Da Vinci's lover. We can only guess at her mysterious gift [ofrenda] of auroral knowledge. Zambrano depicts her as a direct descendant of the Kouroi or cherubim, whose graceful image and mystery repeats within her, as they equally resound within literature, painting, sculpture. We need only to recall Beatrice's last smile in the La divina commedia or the shopkeeper who ends Fernando Pessoa's most famous poem, -Tabacaria,‖ with a smile. 14 Nietzsche, a philosopher deeply admired by Zambrano, equally disrupts meaning in his Beyond Good and Evil when the Dionysian god replies to Zarathustra's inquiry into moral reasoning with a -Halcyon smile‖ (295). 15 Smiles resist us-with their closed alluring line-and in so doing, they wilfully deny access to the knowledge withheld. This act serves as peaceful revenge. María Zambrano complicates the smile by alluding to it as a silent trap; the moment we are captivated (she has an enchanting smile), she shuts us out. 16 Her vengeance, similar to that of the dormant god lying in wait amidst the shadows since Parmenides, is not to let meaning-in this case words-easily escape. Only in active contemplation [contemplación activa] 17 of sophrosyne, without solid reasoning or logical ground, does the sacred dust stir, -donde nace la sonrisa. Y hay el encanto, y hasta el sentir halagada una zona de nuestro ser que apenas vive y hay la sonrisa de vendetta lograda. Hay siempre venganza en la sonrisa, una venganza sutil. Y cuando es una multitud la que sonríe, será, debe de ser, porque se siente vengada en forma pacífica, armoniosa, de algo que soporta, que ha de soportar difícilmente‖ (Islas 170, 171).
Zambrano's observations on the defiant gesture of the smile remind us of lyrics written much earlier by the Spanish poet Antonio Machado on the events leading to the capture of Madrid in 1936. Machado, who was a poet close to Zambrano's heart, 18 emblemises the stoic gesture of the Spanish people with their ‗Madrid Smile,' when the city and its citizens fall tragically to flames [-tú sonríes con plomo en las entrañas‖]. 19 In his verses and in his essays, Machado pays homage to Spanish poets and artists (in the poem, Federico García Lorca and Emiliano Barral) who, in refusing to yield, ironically enact their bequeathed tragedy: Madrid tenía ya-quién puede dudarlo?-una breve y gloriosa tradición salpicada de sangre y de heroísmo, su breve historia trágica, que Don Francisco de Goya anotó para siempre. Pero el pueblo madrileño, que no lo ignoraba, nunca se jactó de ella... Pero la sonrisa madrileña, levemente cínica, marcadamente irónica, es ya una sonrisa a pesar de todo, porque en Madrid es la vida más dura que en el resto de España. (Antología 287,288) The Spaniards' implicit suffering forges more than a common bond with the dramatic impulses of the ‗blood and ‗heroism' of their past; it drives a passive resistance in the form of an internal strong humour that cannot be defeated by ideological confrontation. Machado does not dismiss the ferocity of the conflict but proposes a firm stance in believing that history will, in time, bring some form of justice. The madrileños resist by smiling slightly, implicitly imparting a silent revenge.
The smile serves as precursor to the laugh. It is a momentous pause before action is taken. The smile enshrouds mystery and veils a truth we cannot know directly, at least not yet. Christ responds with a smile to Pontius Pilate's question, ‗What is Truth?', and Zambrano takes note of this, just as she recognizes that the smile comes from a silent inner resistance, since Enigma cannot be told directly, can only be guessed at intimately: pues la sonrisa es lo más delicado de la expresión humana, que florece de preferencia en la intimidad, y aun a solas; comentario silencioso de los discretos, arma de los tímidos y expresión de las verdades que, por tan hondas o entrañables, no pueden decirse. Cuando Cristo se oyó interrogar de Pilatos en aquel proceso paradigmático: Qué es la verdad?, calló y...sonrió. Calló y sonrió como prólogo a la lapidaria contestación en el episodio de la mujer adúltera. Y cuántos procesados humanos no tienen sino callar y sonreír en el punto de la verdad, de la verdad, sin más, que habría de confundir al que procesa. (Islas 170) 20 Zambrano offers her own delicate answers to knowledge with conceptual intrigue.
Impossibly, we feel her smiling back. When she ponders such abstractions such as ‗Love,' ‗Tragedy,' or ‗Heart,' we as critical readers who seek clarity or truth, cannot but keep insisting, as does she: ‗has Philosophy existed in Spain?' We keep reading, seeking, demanding (not unlike Love), all leading us back to the place where we unwittingly lose our footing, to the slippery slope of intangible perceptions and affects that allude to uplifting promises of variances, word play, and aesthetic uncertainty. (Who or what do we love? How do we know we love? What does loving mean in art and reality?) If the point of Philosophy is to ask a question, within the spaces of poetry (or poetics) lies the answer (El hombre 66). 21 Her quizzical tone, her lilt, her metaphorical suggestions, all perform a saltimbanque poesis. 22 She reminds us that within Spanish folklore-from the Quixote to the ‗pueblo' [Agora]-the clown retains old archaic wisdom in his ability to cross over from ancient to modern (in the terms of Zambrano's poetics, from an Auroral ponderance to an imperative of the Sun), from life to death, from theatre to spectacle. In the performance of the smile there is a deep understanding that the clown hides only to slightly reveal. He does nothing but keeps his audience guessing. 23 Like the Kouros, an inner disobedient child of Zeus and the physical incorporation of Dionysius, the clown embodies the archaic wisdom of sophrosyne; he mimes knowledge through silent reporting [testimonia] long before the Philosopher speaks and condemns. The clown does not ask, but mimetically points: Y yo diría que uno de los trucos del payaso que nunca falla es una escena en que no sabríamos decir qué es lo que hace. Pues en realidad, no hace nada. Todos los payasos lo repiten; es infalible y deben de saberlo; ante cualquier público, aunque sea de intelectuales. Y es...cómo describirlo con palabras? Es ese ir y venir vacilante y cambiando de dirección, es ese ir hacia algo y quedarse detenido a la mitad del camino; ese gesto fallido de querer apresar algo, de evitar que se escurra de entre las manos, como si fuera una mariposa, un objeto pesado y a veces grande; el violinista al que se le escapa el violín. Es el...eterno Aquiles que no puede alcanzar a la tortuga. El Aquiles que no puede alcanzar a la tortuga, ¿quién es? ¿No es, acaso, el intelectual, el filósofo; es decir, el que piensa? (Islas 171) When the clown smiles, he ‗dons' the mask of the Kouroi; in so doing he dramatically summons their hermetic divine nature. From around 500 BC, the Greek youths cryptically reveal inner harmony by alluding to an inner understanding of the natural phenomena around them. They are-to use María Zambrano's terminology-portals of an inner passion of ‗delirium.' Apollonian in form, they replicate the perfect youthful body in their corporal statuesque representation; their tense emphatic posture-arms straight, hands clencheddemands a response from those who approach them. In principle, they should represent inner Reason, that which shines light on Truth, specifically when logos answers to specific questions. Except the Dioscuri do not quite obey their strong father Zeus. They serve as messengers of an-Other world, those of the shadows and of passionate divine rituals. Their smile hints at something they have partaken in or gained, or, according to Parmenides's fragmented hexameter poem, some discursive secrets received from the goddess of nature in the course of their journey: -it is right that [he] learns all things [from her]‖ (B1. [28][29]trans in Curd 113).
But if Parmenides encourages his Kouros to recognize Reason through the One or Unity [-whole of a single kind‖], Zambrano does not allow her youth(s) to follow such a straightforward path to Philosophy. Instead, she encourages the sensations of the body, the -aimless eye and resounding ear and tongue‖ to predominate (B7.4-5; trans. in Curd 61). Her Kouroi attend to a poetics of sense perceptions ruled by nature-music, ritual, dance, delirium, and resistance-to receive sacred knowledge not directly from the goddess but indirectly as in a dream. Zambrano interprets Parmenides's contradictions through the logic of slumber: there is and is not movement; there is and is not being; there is and is not unity; knowledge dwells in aporias, just as it does with Zeno's paradoxes. 24 Whether briefly referred to as Kouroi or adolescent youths, young men keep reemerging in Zambrano's writing. 25 They harbour an inner sanctum of knowledge that has not completely disappeared or been transformed into other modes of logic.
Poets such as Virgilio Piñera, Federico García Lorca, Jaime Gil de Biedma, and Emilio Prados 26 or artists such as Picasso, Ramón Gaya and Luis Fernández are Kouroi-turned-flesh, true poetry: -la poesía es vivir en la carne, adentrándose en ella, sabiendo de su angustia y su muerte‖ (Filosofia 57). Existing in liminality or in crisis, their avatars on page or canvas courageously negotiate the dangers between two worlds, including immortality and death (Artículos 91-92). 27 ‗Adolescence,' according to Zambrano is: -entrada en la madurez, y para los que creen en la inmortalidad, la muerte, vale decir; esos momentos peligrosos en que un ser tiene que transformarse‖ (59). Like the statues, these poets and artists point to precarious unknown origins [-al obscuro, indeterminado apeiron‖; Filosofía 29], hinting at a mimetic realism denied by Plato. 28 Theirs is a world of iconoclastic images, of beautiful lost forms. Defying and crossing the line between history and nature, they must keep copying to remember the inner wisdom that dwells in the irrational: -lo irracional que porta y soporta el ser humano, todo aquello que alberga como ajeno, oscuro y remoto, aquello que le obliga a padecer su propia historia‖ (Maillard 25 We must make note, too, that although Zambrano recognizes and accepts Plato early on in her razón poética (as far back as the 1930s)-that the banishment of poets from the Republic was a false but necessary task for survival-she metaphorically reads Plato at a crossroads, as a poet-philosopher who cannot leave his adolescent poetics too far behind (Filosofía 70, 71). 29 If Plato unfairly seems to condemn the uncertainty of knowledge, the ideal forms always point to the darkside of poetics. For Zambrano, Plato is a fallen angel, the castigated poet who came first to Socrates in a dream: Muchas gentes no saben de Platón, sino una leyenda que las hojas del Almanaque reproducen alguna vez: Platón se anunció a su maestro Sócrates, antes de su encuentro con él, en un sueño; en un sueño, bajo la forma de blanco cisne. Reprimamos la sonrisa incrédula de los que han leído mucho y se han ensoberbecido por ello. Porque un cisne es un ángel castigado; un ángel inmovilizado que no ha perdido su pureza, ni sus alas. (71) Divine knowledge pivots against fixity or unity; as Zambrano often remarks, To cross the threshold from curiosity to knowledge, from delirious vision to corporal form proves an impossibility, at least for the Greek figures in Zambrano's writing. From Oedipus to Antigone, from Orpheus to Medusa, these ancient protagonists cannot completely transcend their destiny and historical circumstances; when in crisis they fail to ‗overcome' their inner essence of being.
Something within them resists, and they either embrace their circumstances or suffer for them. Without a concrete body or secure knowledge to give material form to their deepest desires and without ground (home), they are banished to exist in -infratemporality‖ or Hell (192). Exiled, they are non-beings barred from a stable locus, time, history or identity. Somatic metaphors of Enigmatic meaning-they mirror the monstrous wisdom they fear-and inadvertently choose suffering rather than clarity, fragmentation and banishment, rather than unity and ground.
Certain allegorical representatives of adolescent (male) suffering such as Oedipus and Orpheus recur in Zambrano's work and embody the tragedy of wisdom lost. 33 They are Kouroi among dark ruins, whose gift of ‗communication' either through ‗dance,' ‗music,' or ‗lyrics' cannot completely come to fruition or ‗see the light.' Seeking divine continuity [continuidad] in an expectant anti-sacred, logical world, they recognize that there are things that cannot be revealed openly or directly but reverberate within the recesses of their being. 34  Zambrano, instead, renders them to a waking-quietus. They unwittingly collaborate in their own demise. Oedipus and Orpheus are fallen angels who prefer to suffer than to realize that theirs is not a truth that can be represented in any unified way (El hombre 130, 131). They are alienated performers of their own tragic spectacle.
As fragmented beings, they are inferior to reason, always lying in error: -Creerse inferior es pues irse suicidando lentamente y condenar al ‗otro' a que se sienta superior. La obligada inferioridad es una condena doble, pues que implica la forzada superioridad del otro‖ (Artículos 102, 103). By attempting to hide the knowledge held within, they cannot save themselves from being secondary to the strong preponderance (of the Sun) of Reason.
In Zambrano's essays, Oedipus encapsulates the ‗problem of man,' as the vision of his future self (to become king) overpowers him from recognizing his historical circumstances. Instead of going to, he must now step back from the very light and image he had hoped to become. 35 Oedipus's monstrous outer reality sets him on the terrifying journey he does not want to take, that is, to the limitless consciousness within. He has no choice but to traverse the path to poesis. As Zambrano states, -Oedipus does not see that he must be born, above all, as a man and not as a king, nor as anything else‖ (Dreams 194). Zambrano reads him as a would-be philosopher and briefly grants him a second chance, to be a thinker who reaches anagnorisis and sees all things clearly (Obras 55). The light allows him a moment of self-discovery before the terrible truth condemns him to darkness. Precisely at the moment when he questions the Sphinx, he understands what he is. He then chooses to look away from his own reflection as Enigma. Oedipus remains in constant immobility, denying himself access to the knowledge that opens the passions of the Heart. Zambrano calls Oedipus's waking-blind state an ‗inertia,' -an inertia that diverts eros from its transcendent direction‖ (Dreams 193).
Without Love, his reality turns into epoché, a suspension into no-where. 36 If Zambrano defines ‗lack of Love' as a ‗life in Nothingness' (-Dos fragmentos‖ 1, 4), Oedipus is a figure refusing the path to sophrosyne or ultimate self-knowledge to opt instead for a perduring blindness that cannot bear Love or Freedom. His plight has no end but keeps resounding in history, literature, and cultural ruin.
Zambrano quotes Dostoyevsky's question: -Who has not wanted to kill his father?‖ to remind us that the suffering incurred from the -mask of a blinded power‖ keeps tragically repeating, at least when divine knowledge has been abruptly abandoned (Dreams 194). 37 For Oedipus to embrace his history, he must first define himself in the aporia of ‗empty-time.' His refusal of self-decryption or denial of Love as Enigma is reflected in the plight of mankind: -la más aflictiva de la humana condición, es estar oculto a sí mismo, ser ignorante acerca de sí mismo y tropezar con sus pasiones como con los fenómenos naturales o con los inexplicable mandatos de los Dioses‖ (Islas 196 Oedipus's failure to find inherent grace within himself emerges as a constant in Zambrano's work. His suspended tragedy becomes a recurrent metaphor for an exile without transcendence, and it keeps repeating in almost imperceptible murmurs of sacrificial loss. During her mid-career residencies in Cuba andPuerto Rico (1939-1952), 39  ...el mediador con los ínferos. Y eso sí que ha sido un gozoso y penoso descubrimiento mío: la mediación con los ínferos. Yo no creo que se pueda ascender sin dejar algo abajo. Por eso he aceptado el escribir y el hablar, y el vivir la Historia. Y la oración. 40 La oración va más allá de todo. Puede atravesar las mismísimas esferas. (-Sobre la iniciación‖) In Zambrano's Cuba, José Lezama Lima is the poet who ‗faithfully' answers Orpheus to negotiate between Poetry and the divine secrets of the Heart. He -Quizá un poco el terroso dulzor de la caña de azúcar extraída por una boca sin dibujo aún y la densa sombra de los árboles fundiéndose con la tierra, tierra ya antes de caer en ella‖ (Algunos…de Poesía 275). It is only below through the abyss, in the deterritorialisation of being, where one can defiantly gaze towards sophrosyne: -...clavarse por sí mismo en la picota de la ambigüedad, en lo alto entre dos abismos que celan muchos otros-el abismo prolifera-, deshacer con el mirar de la frente a la falacia, sonreír en el centro oscuro de la llama es la incesante actividad del hombre verdadero‖ (Islas 214). dreams. In all her work we find her describing literature as a secret landscape projected by the daimon of the gods. 46 Zambrano cites numerous literary characters that call upon their divine power to be released from the burdens of History, but it is particularly in the figure of Don Quixote where she finds her answer, as he encapsulates -estar fuera de sí, andar enajenado‖ (El hombre 223).
He is a portal of divine wisdom, a mirrored reflection of the Spanish soul. Zambrano finds Tragedy unresolvable. Another name for sophrosyne, Tragedy defies rational thinking or systematic clarity by finding relief in sentiments that define Enigma, such as ‗pity, ' ‗failure,' and ‗fear' (Adrados 58). To find ‗liberation' in the ambiguity of Don Quixote is to refrain from acting in (Philosophical) revenge and not turn the Smile into Laughter or restraint into victorious action. By reading Cervantes (and Quevedo, too) as a keeper of the sacred, Zambrano acknowledges the relief felt in the transcendence of the delectable irony of (a projected but never violent) vendetta: Pues esta sonrisa piadosa e irónica, nacida de la mirada que ve el conjunto de los asuntos humanos, es el tesoro que portan los largamente vencidos en la historia. La mirada que descubre en la cumbre de la fortuna la desgracia; y en el abismo de la derrota, la victoria y el triunfo. Porque la vida pasa y el arte queda. -Reirá más quien ría el último,‖ es el grito de amargura que anticipa la venganza casi siempre destructora, ya que la venganza verdadera es arte, sino es solamente prolongación de la impiedad del vencedor. Mientras que la sonrisa, piedad e ironía del que ve la historia total y no el episodio inmediato por mucho que nos duela, anticipa el porvenir; un porvenir diferente en que el presente quede superado. (Islas 167) Zambrano's article (1948) was published in Las Españas (1946)(1947)(1948)(1949)(1950)(1951)(1952)(1953)(1954)(1955)(1956). The Republican journal was established in Mexico as a forum for Spanish exiles to criticise the Franco regime and to put forward a liberal agenda on nationality, politics, and identity. It also published seminal articles on Spanish art, literature, and philosophy by critics who collaborated in the same spirit as the founding Revista Las Españas by Ortega y Gasset and Guillermo de Torre (1926)(1927)(1928)(1929)(1930)(1931)(1932)(1933)(1934)(1935)(1936). For an in-depth overview see Valender and Rojo Leyva. In her article, Zambrano directly addresses Ortega y Gasset (Meditaciones del Quijote; 1914) and Menéndez y Pelayo (La ciencia española; 1887) as examples of writers who prove that systematic reasoning (but not necessarily Philosophy) has always existed in Spain: -poseemos una gran riqueza de precursores, de hombres sin duda geniales, que se anticiparon y pensaron ‗casi' algunas de las ideas más innovadoras y revolucionarias del pensamiento occidental, tal por ejemplo la que inaugura la Época Modernades de el Discurso del Método de Descartes‖ (-El problema‖ 4).
2 Roberta Johnson and Janet Pérez both observe in separate studies the difficulty in defining razón poética. It is not in the strict philosophical sense a method of ‗reasoning' but a sensory feeling, a ‗desire,' an ‗intuition' or a ‗passion.' I have chosen not to avoid using it, but abstain from translating it directly (a Zambranoan move perhaps?) As Johnson notes, razón poética strongly borrows from . See Pérez,.
3 I have chosen to capitalise Zambrano's key concepts to emphasise their abstractness and importance in her philosophical thinking. Zambrano on occasion chose to capitalise these terms but was not methodical in her orthography. Curiously, the one term which she never capitalises (but Ortega occasionally does in his particular derivative) is razón poética. 4 Aletheia is usually thought of as an undisclosed truth or open truth. María Zambrano returns to its archaic definition of ‗remembrance.' 5 The philosophical discussion surrounding sophrosyne is a lengthy one, and it can be argued that all of Greek philosophy preoccupies itself with this term (certainly from Parmenides onwards). I have chosen to draw upon Helen North's seminal studies on sophrosyne and Kristian Urstad's work on temperance. They both argue that sophrosyne incorporates (by way of denial) secret knowledge of desires, feelings and pleasures. Our common understanding of the term comes from the late 5 th century onwards, through Socrates, who advocates for -being self-controlled and master of oneself, ruling the pleasures and appetites within oneself‖ (qtd. in Urstad 9). North and Urstad argue on the contrary that sophrosyne did not reject desire completely, as it would have interfered with enjoying a full life that seeks to incorporate all kinds of intelligence. See North, Sophrosyne and Urstad, -The question of Temperance.‖ 6 Zambrano creates a spell for those who read her closely like myself. In attempting to write an explicative essay, I found myself incorporating and echoing her poetic language. Many readers of her work cannot refrain from using her linguistic turns of phrase or cryptic metaphors. Perhaps Zambrano's writing functions as a mimetic trap to point to the paradoxes of razón poética? 7 Mark Carr incorporates Helen North's alternative definition of sophrosyne in his study on ‗advantageous passions' and the ways in which they allow one to lead a moral life, including the conscious choice of accepting (for one's own moral advantage) mania. See Passionate Deliberation (18). In separate scholarship, Michael Mahon and Paulus Van Tongeren equally observe the contradictory power of sophrosyne in Nietzsche's thought. See Mahon, Foucault"s Nietzschean Genealogy and Van Tongeren, -Nietzsche's revaluation.‖ 8 Zambrano always returns to Enigma as a tentative way or uncertain departure where knowledge lies-we can only guess an answer to its location, even if further questions arise, as if in a game: -Pues enigma es una respuesta disfrazada de pregunta, de lo que en tantos juegos infantiles de preguntas y respuestas ha quedado el rastro. La respuesta está jugando al escondite dentro de la pregunta‖ (Artículos 90). 9 See Bundgård. 10 Zambrano defines transcendence as: de(s)velación, revelación, or when addressing the poetry of Antonio Machado, it is a ‗proyección sentimental' (Algunos...de Poesía 142, 143). It is ‗projective' in that it directs the intellect towards another place; it is never ‗here' but always somewhere ‗over there' or ‗back there.' The puzzlement or surprise comes when we realize that we can never ‗reach' it.