About the authorship in the Miguel de Unamuno’s nivolas

Abstract

This article proposes a study of the ways in which Unamuno conceives the authorship of the nivola and how these are manifested in the different nivolas, particularly in Amor y pedagogía, Niebla, Abel Sánchez and La novela de don Sandalio jugador de ajedrez.

As a novelist and theorist of the novel, Unamuno defends shared authorship, which is why, in the nivola, he will employ the necessary narrative strategies to eliminate himself as its author. Among the most recurrent procedures, the fictionalisation of Unamuno by means of three strategies should be highlighted: the use of a fictional entity as the author of the nivola, Unamuno's disidentification by means of, among others, metalepsis, and his discrediting as the author of the nivola within the nivola itself. In parallel, Unamuno, in his ontological dimension, as a philosopher and thinker, fights against the finitude of the human being by means of the procedure we have called Unamuno's “masquerade”, which allows him to prevail in his work. This masquerade consists of delegating his discourse to different characters. This process can be carried out in a partial way (which has been described as “simple masquerade”) or in a complex way (to which the Unamunian agonists and alter egos correspond). 

This paper will identify each of the aforementioned strategies in the Unamunian narrative in order to encourage debate on the cohabitation of two a priori opposing ways of understanding authorship.