Antonio Machado: Life, Poetry, and Legacy
Antonio Machado: A Life in Verse
Biographical Data
Antonio Machado was born in Seville in 1875. At the age of eight, he moved with his family to Madrid and was educated at the *Institución Libre de Enseñanza*. He was the brother of the poet Manuel Machado. He worked as a French professor at the Institute of Soria. In 1909, he married Leonor Izquierdo, a 16-year-old girl who tragically died three years later. This event deeply affected Machado, leading him to leave Soria and seek teaching positions elsewhere. He became a member of the Royal Spanish Academy in 1927. In 1928, he fell in love with Pilar de Valderrama, who appears in his verses as Guiomar. Committed to the Republican cause, he was forced into exile in France towards the end of the Spanish Civil War. He died in Collioure, France, in 1939.
Conception of Poetry
Machado viewed poetry as a “dialogue of a man with his time.” His poetic thought was rooted in paradox, seeing poetry as an essential word in time, marked by intense emotion, deep introspection, purification, sobriety, and density.
Key Themes in Machado’s Poetry
- Time: The passage of time, originating from the fear of its relentless march, is a central theme.
- Symbols: He frequently used symbols like water and the road to represent temporal elements, particularly morning and evening.
- Sleep: Sleep is portrayed as the only form of knowledge.
- Boredom: A predominant feeling of ennui pervades his work.
- Nature: Dreams of nature often serve as a projection of the poet himself.
- Love: Love is depicted as a lived dream, more ethereal than erotic. Women are often portrayed as dreamlike figures, and allusions to the lack of love are common.
Phases of Machado’s Poetic Development
First Phase: *Soledades* (1903)
This initial period is characterized by post-Romantic Modernism, influenced by the French Symbolist poet Verlaine. The tone is intimate, reflecting personal reactions to nature and death. Key themes include the fear of the passage of time, death, sleep, and memory that returns the past in a purified form. Symbols like the road represent life and the passage of time, dreams express the depths of consciousness, water reflects desires and the monotony of life, and the evening evokes sadness and melancholy. The form is marked by the poet’s constant dialogue with himself and the landscape.
Second Phase: *Soledades, Galerías y Otros Poemas* (1907)
In this phase, the Modernist influence diminishes, and references to the Castilian landscape emerge. *Soledades* revisits poems from the earlier work but sheds the formal aspects of Modernism, emphasizing the intimate line. *Galerías* features short poems characterized by their evocative power, symbolism, and intense introspection. *Otros Poemas* explores personal concerns, links to the outside world, and the importance of remembrance.
Third Phase: *Campos de Castilla* (1912)
This stage reflects Machado’s concern for Castilian Spain and marks his greatest confluence with the authors of the Generation of ’98. Key features include heterogeneity, reflecting Machado’s evolution from individualism to social commitment, and a shift from the inner world to the outside world. Prominent themes are the Castilian landscape, political and social issues (love for Castile alongside a critical attitude towards the country’s historical reality), praise for admired personalities, and existential and religious concerns. Notable sections include *Proverbios y Cantares* and *Parábolas*, which are short and pithy, and *La Tierra de Alvargonzález*, a long romance about envy and greed.
Fourth Phase: *Nuevas Canciones* (1924)
Philosophical concerns and folk elements come to the fore in this phase. This period also includes *Canciones a Guiomar* and *De un Cancionero Apócrifo*, featuring his alter egos, the teachers Juan de Mairena and Abel Martín, allowing him to explore different viewpoints.
Style
Machado’s style is characterized by its starkness and sobriety, a rejection of Baroque excess (antibarroquismo), a tendency towards conciseness, and a conversational tone. He employs popular expressions, irony, exclamations, impressionistic descriptions, and symbolic imagery. His preferred meters include octosyllabic, hendecasyllabic, and Alexandrine verses, as well as popular verse forms like *soleares*.
Prose
In narrative prose, his *Juan de Mairena* stands out, containing sharp and witty comments on philosophy, art, and politics, attributed to the title character, an alter ego of the author.
Theater
In collaboration with his brother Manuel, Machado wrote several plays that followed the Modernist aesthetic but delved deeper into the psychology of the characters. Their most successful work was *La Lola se va a los Puertos*.