Antonio Machado: Life, Works, and Poetic Style

Antonio Machado: Biography

Antonio Machado was born in Seville in 1875 into a progressive, liberal family, which influenced his life, work, and thought. During his travels to Paris, he met Rubén Darío. He secured a position at a secondary school in Soria, where he married Leonor Izquierdo. They traveled to Paris, but Leonor fell ill with tuberculosis and they returned to Soria. A year later, she died. Machado, devastated, left Soria. He moved to Segovia and met Pilar Valderrama.

In 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out, and Machado sided with the Republic. He died in France in 1939. He was a liberal who opposed social inequalities and adopted revolutionary positions. During Machado’s lifetime, Spain experienced a golden age with the Industrial Revolution. Progress occurred in science, industry, transportation, and communications. The country enjoyed a period of stability and international peace.

However, in 1898, Spain faced economic backwardness, social unrest, and political instability. A number of writers, including Machado, recognized the need to reconsider Spain’s traditional values. These writers, known as the Generation of ’98, prioritized expressing ideas. Their main themes included:

  • Spain (protests over the situation in Spain)
  • Land of Spain (describing Castile)
  • Existential concerns
  • Religious history

Machado’s Works

Solitudes (1903)

Machado became a recognized poet with his first book, Solitudes. Influenced by Romanticism and Symbolism, he was initially associated with the Modernists. However, while his work contained formal features of modernist lyricism, Machado did not fully embrace modernist rhetoric. He preferred a more intimate style with simple symbols. In this stage, Machado set his poems in parks, sunsets, and solitary gardens adorned with fountains where the water stagnates. He demonstrated a preference for rhyme and long verses (12 and 14 syllables) and experimented with accentual metrics.

Campos de Castilla (1912)

Campos de Castilla is Machado’s most famous book. Without completely abandoning modernist features, he evolved towards themes more aligned with the Generation of ’98, of which he is considered the emblematic poet. In this stage, Machado describes the Castilian landscape, expresses love and grief over the death of his wife, and shows interest in Spain’s regeneration. His style is characterized by a lack of technical embellishments and a simpler metric. The poetic voice is no longer “I,” but “we.”

New Songs (1924) and Apocryphal Song

In these works, Machado expresses objective knowledge and philosophical thoughts. A new female character, Guiomar, appears, introducing the theme of love, but the memory of his deceased wife remains important. He also includes poems related to war.

Commentary on Machado’s Poetry

Let’s analyze a poem from Solitudes, a book in which Machado meditates on the passage of time, memory, and lost childhood. His poetic voice is taciturn and solitary. Natural elements and the sensory world are also present, reflecting themes of Modernism, the literary trend that influenced Machado more in Solitudes than in Campos de Castilla.

Structure of the Poem

The poem is structured in the following parts:

  • Thesis of the poem

In this poem, Machado… [Explanation with examples from the poem].

Analysis

This poem belongs to the lyric genre, which is used to express feelings. The poem’s meter is [METRIC, example: a romance in octosyllabic verses with consonant and assonant rhyme].

Stylistic Figures

[Analysis of stylistic figures used in the poem].

Grammar and Lexicon

The lexicon of this poem is simple.

Spanish Verse Forms

Octosyllabic Verse

Octosyllabic verse is common in popular tradition.

Stanzas in Octosyllabic Verse:

  • Romance [-a-a-a-a…]
  • Romance in heptasyllabic (lay) and hexasyllabic (ballad) verses
  • Quatrain [a, b, a, b]
  • Redondilla [a, b, b, a]
  • Couplet [-, a, -, a]
  • Seguidilla: Traditional [7-, 5a, 7-, 5a, 5b, 7-, 5b], 6 [6a, 6-, 6a, 6-, 6a, 6b, 6-, 6b]
  • Soleá [a, -, a] and Soleá shirt [6-, 8a, 6-]
  • Limerick
  • Tenth and octosyllabic Silva (octosyllabic and tetrasyllabic verses)

Hendecasyllabic Verse

Hendecasyllabic verse is characteristic of cultured tradition and is usually accompanied by heptasyllabic verse.

Stanzas in Hendecasyllabic Verse:

  • Sonnet
  • Trio
  • Silva

Alexandrine Verse

Alexandrine verse is characteristic of Modernism.

Stanzas in Alexandrine Verse:

  • Semi-detached
  • Serventesio [A, B, A, B] combinations
  • Sonnet in Alexandrine with Serventesio

Dodecasyllabic Verse

Dodecasyllabic verse is also characteristic of Modernism.

Stanzas in Dodecasyllabic Verse:

  • Serventesios
  • Heroic Romance
  • Silva in May
  • Acute Quinteto-12 [A, A, B, B, -]
  • Silva in 6 and 8, and combination of 10 and 14

Free Verse

Free verse is used very rarely.