Antonio Machado: Life, Work, and Poetic Evolution
Antonio Machado: A Literary Journey
Antonio Machado is considered one of the greatest poets of the Generation of ’98 and one of the most significant Spanish poets of all time. While his early poems align with the aesthetics of Modernism, they soon adopt an intimate, Becquerian tone, rich in simple yet powerful symbols. His affiliation with the Generation of ’98 is evident in his appreciation for landscape, his contemplation of time’s passage, his concern for Spain’s situation and future, his skepticism, and his affirmation of the spiritual over the material.
Key Themes in Machado’s Work
Three primary themes run through his work:
- The poet’s inner world: memories, dreams, the perception of time.
- Landscape: particularly Castile and Andalusia, the people of Castile, the historical past, the current reality, and the national situation, viewed critically.
- Love.
Poetic Evolution and Major Works
Machado’s poetic evolution can be divided into distinct stages, each represented by a significant book:
Soledades (Solitudes): This book is the closest to Modernism. It features characteristic symbols: the spring and river (representing desires and dreams, but also monotony), the afternoon (meditation or decline), the garden, and autumn. Formal simplicity and a persistent longing for childhood are personal notes of this period. The poem alternates between quatrains and octosyllabic verses, i.e., four lines of minor art (in this case, eight syllables) with crossed consonant rhyme (abab) and four minor art verses (also octosyllabic) with chained or embracing rhyme (abba).
In Soria, Machado’s love for the Castilian landscape emerges. His poetic style becomes increasingly sober and simple. Poems where the poet converses with himself, in an intimate line, begin to appear, revealing his preoccupation with the passage of time and death.
Campos de Castilla (Fields of Castile): This book is the closest to the ethics and aesthetics of the Generation of ’98 in his entire body of work. The poet identifies with the land of Castile, and his poetry tends towards greater objectivity, without losing its intimate focus.
“Olmo Seco” (Dry Elm): A Detailed Look
The poem “Olmo Seco” is structured in the form of a rhyming consonant silva (an indefinite series of seven-syllable and eleven-syllable verses mixed at the poet’s discretion, with free rhyme; unrhymed verses may also appear). It begins with an allegory where “the old elm tree split by lightning” represents “his sick wife” or “the dying of Spain.” There is a soft enjambment between “lightning” and “and at the half rotten.” There is also a hyperbaton: “I have left some green leaves.”
“Retrato” (Portrait): Structure and Rhetorical Devices
“Retrato” consists of Alexandrine verses (fourteen syllables), rhyming in a consonant pattern of (ABAB), (DCCD), …, (QRQR), essentially a string of *serventesios*. Analysis of rhetorical figures:
- “My childhood memories are of a courtyard in Seville” (Image of “infancy” and “Memories”).
- “and an orchard clearing where lemons ripen” (Image of “infancy” and “garden”; Epithet: “clearing garden”).
- “my youth, twenty years in the land of Castile” (Image of “youth” and “twenty years”).
- “my history, some events I remember not want” (Image of “history” and “some events”).
- “not a seducer Mañara, no Bradomín I’ve been” (Comparison).
- “you know my awkward sartorial dressing, but I got the arrow assigned me Cupid” (Metaphor).
- “and loved as they may have to hospital.”
- “There is in my veins blood drops Jacobin” (Metaphor).
- “but my verse springs serene spring” (Metaphor, Epithet: “serene spring”).
- “and more than a man who knows his doctrine, I am, in the good sense of the word, good” (Pun).
- “I adore beauty, and modern aesthetics, cut the old garden roses from Ronsard” (Along with the previous verse, Metaphor).
- “I love the makeup but not the current cosmetic” (Metaphor).
- “I’m not a bird of these the new gay art – trill” (Comparison).
From verse 31, there is an enumeration.
- “And when the day of the last trip,” (Metaphor).
- “And is to split the ship that never has to turn,” (Metaphor).
- “find me on board, lightweight luggage,”
- “almost naked as the children of the sea.” (Simile: “naked as the children of the sea.”)