Book excerpt: María Zambrano is widely regarded as one of the most original Spanish thinkers of the twentieth century. Her biggest contribution to intellectual history is, without doubt, her poetic reason and unique attempt to overcome the limiting coordinates of the framework of rationality established by the Enlightenment. Having spent forty-five years in exile, the relevance of this Spanish Republican thinker has only been recognised in recent decades, and this monograph explores the political dimension present throughout her work to argue for it as one of her key motivations. This monograph, therefore, reveals the political dimension inherent to Zambrano’s proposal for an alternative rationality – that is, poetic reason – and, to this end, this book questions existing assumptions regarding Zambrano’s thought and reframes it with its emphasis on the pivotal role of reason.