María Zambrano

Roberta Johnson (University of California, Los Angeles)
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María Zambrano’s trajectory as a philosopher is tightly bound up with her itinerant life as a Spanish Civil War exile from 1939 until 1984. Zambrano was born on April 25, 1904 in Vélez-Málaga, Andalusia, the southernmost province of Spain where Moorish influence was intense and lasting. Some have attributed Zambrano’s interest in Sufism to her Andalusian origins, and some commentators on her work ally it with mysticism (see Moreno Sanz and Bundgård). However, her philosophy can be fully situated within the western philosophical tradition. Her central philosophical concept – poetic reason, which includes a consideration of the emotions (what Zambrano often called the soul) in human life – is an alternative to the “vital …

3859 words

Citation: Johnson, Roberta. "María Zambrano". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 May 2014 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=13256, accessed 28 March 2024.]

13256 María Zambrano 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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