Antonio Machado: Biography of a Spanish Literary Master
Antonio Machado: Life and Works
Early Life and Education
Antonio Machado was born on July 26, 1875, in Seville, Spain. He was the second of five children in a liberal family. His father, Antonio Machado Álvarez, known as “Demófilo,” a friend of Joaquín Costa and Francisco Giner de los Ríos, published numerous studies on Andalusian and Galician folklore. His mother was Ana Ruiz. His grandfather, Antonio Machado Núñez, was a physician and professor of Natural Sciences. In 1883, his grandfather became a professor at the Universidad Central de Madrid, and the whole family moved with him to that city. Antonio Machado then completed his training at the famous Free Institution of Education, founded by Francisco Giner de los Ríos. Machado repeatedly interrupted his studies, affected by his family’s economic problems after his father’s death from tuberculosis in 1893. His family’s influence and study center marked his intellectual path.
Paris and Early Career
In 1899, Antonio Machado traveled to Paris, where his brother, Manuel, resided. The two brothers would later launch a joint career as playwrights. In Paris, Antonio came into contact with figures like Oscar Wilde and Pío Baroja. He also attended classes by the philosopher Henri Bergson, who impressed him deeply. He returned to Spain and worked as an actor while achieving a bachelor’s degree. In 1902, he returned to Paris and met Rubén Darío. Back in Madrid, he befriended Juan Ramón Jiménez and published Soledades (1903).
Soria, Marriage, and Loss
In 1907, he published Soledades, Galerías y Otros Poemas, an expanded version of Soledades, and won a competition for the post of professor of French. He chose the vacant position at the Soria Institute, where he met Leonor Izquierdo, whom he married two years later. He was 34, and she was 15. In 1911, they traveled to Paris, where Machado received a scholarship to further his studies. Leonor fell ill with tuberculosis and died in 1912, plunging Machado into a deep depression. He requested a transfer to Baeza, where he lived with his mother, devoted to teaching and studying.
*Campos de Castilla* and the Generation of ’98
In 1912, he published Campos de Castilla, a work in which the author departed from the modernist features of Soledades. His work had evolved since Soledades, Galerías y Otros Poemas, approaching the patriotic concerns of the authors of the Generation of ’98. He maintained extensive correspondence with Miguel de Unamuno, and some of their ideas are reflected in this book.
Baeza, Segovia, and Later Works
In Baeza, in 1917, he met Federico García Lorca, with whom he formed a great friendship. In 1919, he moved to Segovia, where he found a cultural environment more congenial to his tastes. He began to participate in the activities of the recently founded People’s University, which aimed to extend culture to the most remote social sectors. He taught French at the Segovia Institute until 1932. He was then granted a professorship at the Calderón de la Barca Institute in Madrid. He wrote prose that would later be collected in the two apocryphal works, Juan de Mairena and Abel Martín. During this time, he courted a married lady, Pilar Valderrama, who appears under the name Guiomar in the verses of Nuevas Canciones (1924), his last book of poetry. He felt a great interest in philosophy and pursued a degree in fits and starts in this area at the Central University.
Spanish Civil War and Exile
With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, he moved to Valencia, specifically to the town of Rocafort, where he lived from November 1936 to March 1938. He published La Guerra in 1937. Between 1937 and 1939, Machado published 26 articles in La Vanguardia, which at that time was the organ of expression of the government of the Republic, collecting signatures of the most prominent intellectuals and writers who supported the Republican cause. In February 1939, after the occupation of Barcelona, he went into exile in Collioure, France, where he died shortly after. Three days later, his mother also passed away. In the pocket of his coat was found a final verse: “These blue days and this sun of childhood.”