Antonio Machado: Enduring Influence and Poetic Language
Machado: Torches of Influence
In 1969, UNESCO declared Antonio Machado “poet of universal values.” After the Spanish Civil War, poets like Blas de Otero turned to Machado as the highest example of poetry and humanity. Machado is the explorer of the soul’s mysterious fevers and a serious meditator on universal temporal reality. He was the poet of time and existence, whose doctrine banished verbal virtuosity that prevented the expression of life’s warmth. The boomer generation poets in Spain, such as Leopoldo Panero and Luis Rosales, Joseph Hierro, Gabriel Celaya, and Blas de Otero, are noteworthy. During the social trend’s boom years, the “second baby boomer” poets restored the belief that the poetic act is primarily about exploring reality in depth. They also denounced the trend of social motivation. Machado’s vision was broadened, rescuing forgotten aspects of his work. Some authors showing Machado’s affinity include:
- Ángel González, who reflects on the influence of Seville.
- José Manuel Caballero Bonald, who “is measured by the daily interchangeable standard, where the intimate of each can be identified from the depths of consciousness, with ‘your essential’ Machado spoke.”
- José Ángel Valente, who denounces using Machado as a “banner and propaganda,” stating, “Machado, a great poet, is in the line of Quevedo and meditative Manrique.”
- Jaime Gil de Viedma, whose attitude aligns with Machado, as does that of Francisco Brines, Claudio Rodríguez, and José Agustín Goytisolo.
1966 marked the beginning of a new class of poets breaking from the ethical-realist tradition. Machado was an obstacle because he prioritized moral and human concerns. During the 80s and 90s, young Spanish poets returned to Machado’s work, demonstrating its enduring force, as seen with Andrés Trapiello. Machado shapes language arising from nature and life itself, embodying depth in approaching serious human problems.
Machado: Poetic Language
1) Poetry and Philosophy:
Machado always saw the relationship between the poetic and the philosophical. Poets learned the art of metaphor from philosophers: Heraclitus’s river, Plato’s cave, Pythagoras’s lyre, etc. Machado saw no insurmountable barriers between poetry and philosophy. He believed timeless poetry is achieved by emphasizing the poem’s time (the word in time). The nature of poetry is based on the temporal expression of individual psychological and subjective experience. The lyric expresses feeling, speaking from the heart.
2) Symbol:
His symbols can have a single meaning (monosemous): life as a journey toward death, the road as a symbol of life. His poetry is dominated by symbols with two meanings: the logical and the irrational. Words act as associations, creating an emotional climate. The ostensible subject serves as a medium or support for the emotions. Machado’s work is a cosmos; his poetic language is polysemic symbols.
3) Other Means of Expression/Poetry:
A) Lexicon:
- Sense of old age, sadness, death: words expressing the decadence of things or humans.
- Words translating anguish, boredom, youth, melancholy.
- Somber, dull, gray, black, dusty: the colors of anxiety and weariness.
- Sensitivity to daylight’s vivid shades and moments.
- Time as a fundamental poetic inspiration, using specific vocabulary, including adverbs like today and yesterday.
- Switching between dreams and reality.
- Attention to the soul, the supernatural, the spiritual, the wonderful, or the fantastic, with obsessive lexicon.
- Adjectives varying from epithets to synesthesia.
B) Stylistic and Expressive Procedures:
- Humanization or personification of things to communicate with the surroundings or in a twin vision of landscapes, people, and history.
- Use of exclamation to translate emotion to objects, people, or landscape elements.
- Use of direct questioning.
- Inclusion of monologues and dialogues.
- Taste for suspension or reticence.
C) Metric:
- Meters used: octosyllable and pentameter.
- Stanzas: sonnets, quatrains, and couplets. Modernism involved pairing, the silva, and the romance of popular tradition, the cuarteta, soleá songs.