Writers of Salamanca:  A walk round their statues

Teresa Sanchez Cepeda Davila y Ahumada, Santa Teresa de Avila was born near that town in 1515 and died at Alba de Tormes, a village near Salamanca, in October 1582.  Her paternal grandfather was a marrano (Jewish convert to Christianity) and was condemned by the Spanish Inquisition for allegedly returning to the Jewish faith. Teresa's father bought a knighthood and thus flourished in Christian society.  She was raised a pious Christian, and was fascinated the lives of the saints.  When she was fourteen Teresa's mother died, her grief was profound and prolonged.  She became obsessed by the Virgin Mary, seeing her as a mother figure, her salvation.  She was sent away to be educated by the Augustinian nuns of Avila. This affected her health badly.  She experienced periods of 'religious ecstasy' and was influenced by mystical and spiritual writings. During her illness she had hallucinations and became convinced she had divine inspiration.  Some of her contemporaries thought she was possessed by the devil which caused her great distress.  Others saw her as a credible spiritual icon. 

Teresa resolved to enter a religious life. In 1535, she joined the Carmelite Order.  She moved into a period of increasingly ecstatic experiences in which she came to focus more and more sharply on Christ's passion.   These visions prompted her to reform the order. With a group of supporters, she created a more simple type of Carmelite. From 1560 until her death, Teresa dedicated her life to expanding the movement of Carmelitas Discalzas.  

Since childhood she had been fascinated by literature and in the mid-1560s, Teresa wrote The Way of Perfection and the Meditations on the Canticle.  Her  works are hugely important benchmarks in the history of Christian mysticism.  I think I would like Theresa, she seems very Buddhist, though thiest at the same time!

Let nothing disturb you.

Let nothing make you afraid.
All things are passing.
God alone never changes.
Patience gains all things.
If you have God you will want for nothing.
God alone suffices.

Our walk past Salamanca's literary figures moves on chronologically to the Plaza Mayor.  

Between the arches are plaques to important Spaniards.  Miguel de Cervantes is arguably the most important Spaniard of modern times.  The 'father of western literature' was born at the end of September 1547 and died on the same date as my Mum, 22nd April, nearly 400 years earlier in 1616.  There is debate as to whether he ever studied or lived in Salamanca but he certainly deserves his plaque. 

There is a statue by Serrano of Miguel de Unamuno  (1864-1936) close to the Convento de las Ursulas 

Opposite, on the walls of La Casa de los Ovalle a plaque commemorates his life.  Unamuno lived here during the years of the Spanish Civil War.  He was a critic of the latter and ended up in house arrest.  In fact, he took neither side and found the whole situation miserable.   Despite being very patriotic in his thinking, Unamuno said of the military revolt that it would be the victory of  "a brand of Catholicism that is not Christian and of a paranoid militarism bred in the colonial campaigns." 

Born in Bilbao, Pais Vasco, Unamuno was a writer and philosopher.  His major philosophical essay was The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), and his most famous novel was Abel Sanchez, (1917), a modern exploration of the Cain and Abel story.  Niebla, 1914, is another key work.  It translates as Mist or Fog and relates to the confusion a young man experiences in his personal relationships.   

Unamuno served as rector of the university in Salamanca for two periods: from 1900 to 1924 and 1930 to 1936, during a time of great social and political upheaval.  He was removed from his two university chairs by the dictator General Primo de Rivera in 1924, following his involvement in protest.  He lived in exile in France until 1930.  Unamuno returned to Spain after the fall of the dictatorship in 1930 and took up his rectorship again. It is said in Salamanca that the day he returned to the University, Unamuno began his lecture by saying "As we were saying yesterday..."  

Unamuno was also a supporter of Iberian Federalism , convinced there should be strong links with Catalan and Portugese literature.  

Gonzalo Torrente Ballester ( 1910 – 1999) was a Galician writer who taught at the University in Salamanca from 1975 and remained a prominent figure in the city till his death. I am told the students adored him; his lectures were always packed because they were so entertaining and vibrant.
I apologise for the colouring in this photograph.  It still like it.  It shows his statue inside Cafe Novelty in the Plaza Mayor.  Ballester took his coffee there daily until he reached an advanced age, always sitting in the place now occupied by this statue. He was educated at  the Universities of Santiago de Compestela and Oviedo and was a member of the Generation of 36 movement. This was a literary movement that was persecuted savagely during the years of the Spanish Civil War. Nevertheless Ballester supported the Franco regime during the 30s but later distanced himself from the Falange party.  He joined in protests in 1962 and was expelled from his teaching post at the university as a result. He left Spain for a post in the US and remained there until 1973. 

Ballester's first novel, Javier Mariño, appeared in 1943, and he continued to publish novels almost until his death, receiving major prizes.

Carmen Martín Gaite (1925 – 2000) was another award winning author.  She wrote psychological novels, grounded in social realism.The daughter of an affluent, liberal family, she was born in Salamanca  and obtained a degree in Romance Philology from it's University.  She spent much of her later life in Madrid, moving in the city's literary circles, and finally dying (of cancer) in the city.   Carmen survived the dismal Spain of the post-civil war years, working for newspapers and magazines.   Her life was difficult; Franco's government was hostile to independent women. Nevertheless, she helped change the face of Spanish literature, winning all possible prizes except those which were fixed - in which she refused to participate. She was a writer of principle; she agreed to speak at a public library threatened by closure and refused to lend her name to establishment institutions.  Her best known book is Usos amorosos de la post-guerra española (Post-war Love Customs), 1987. Two novels have been published in English, Variable Cloud (1995) and The Farewell Angel (1999). 

  Despite her early success, her life was tinged with tragedy.  As well as the long struggle of the Franco era, she endured divorce and the death of her only child, her daughter Marta, in 1985. She dedicated her novel Lo raro es vivir (How Strange It Is To Live) to a friend who "always poked her head out among ruins and mistakes with her smile of light".
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