Juan Ramón Jiménez, Antonio Machado, Pedro Salinas: Poetic Trajectories
Juan Ramón Jiménez: Trajectory and Stages
Juan Ramón Jiménez’s life revolves around poetry. His career is recognized in three phases: innocence and simplicity, the poetry of décor or complication, and poesía pura (pure poetry). His work is influenced by classical Spanish and traditional poetry, Modernism, the Generation of ’27, and French Symbolism. His life’s work is distinguished by three stages:
First Stage: Sensitive
The fundamental issue is sensitivity, expressing the poet’s feelings about different topics: nature, love, and death. There is an influence of Rubén Darío, Parnassianism, and Symbolism. His works, such as Soledad and Arias Tristes, emphasize the importance of music in poetry. Elejías refers to the theme of loneliness. The symbol becomes one of the characteristic features of his poetry.
Second Stage: Intellectual
In 1913, he met Zenobia Camprubí, and he married her in 1916 in the United States. This love, travel, and the influence of American poetry caused changes in his poetry. Diario de un poeta recién casado (Diary of a Newly Married Poet) is a diary in the real sense. We can follow the stages of the journey, the intimate experiences of the poet, and what happens in that era. The characteristics of this stage are intellectualism, a polished and highly elaborated work, absence of anecdote, use of free verse, using experimental metrics, and condensation of the poetic word. He removes the colorful adjectives, predominantly using nouns. In this stage, we find Eternidades, which expresses the struggle for the right word.
Third Stage: True
This stage coincides with his exile from Spain. It is made up of Romances de Coral Gables, Animal de fondo, and Tercera antología, which includes poems from the second anthology. In its metric, it combines classic shapes with the use of prose in combination with poetry or the prose poem. The poems become longer. In his works, we can point to two themes: God is present in the poetry, and the explanation is man on man and his life. Death as God is a theme throughout his career; poetry immortalizes beauty.
Antonio Machado: Poetic Trajectory
The salient features of his poetry are:
- Not interested in the superficial, neither anecdote nor ornament, but the most essential to being human.
- Its themes are those of his time and the problems that affected either the poet or society.
- Dialogue, talks with others (beloved, friends, environment) but mainly with himself.
His work has a very personal stamp. There is evolution; however, one can distinguish three stages: 1st Stage – Initial-symbolist “stage of affirmation of I”. 2nd stage – feedback, “stage of your”. 3rd – Phase of us.
Pedro Salinas: Stages
It is worth noting his publications on Rubén Darío and Ruben Manrique. In his poetic career, one can distinguish three stages:
Initial Stage
In search of a poetic voice, it shows the scores of the poet as a preparation for the second stage. The themes are love or the ocean, and modern life also appears. It comprises: Presagios, Seguro Azar, and Fábula y signo.
Central Stage: True Cycle
He produces his original and bright poetry. In 1933, he published La voz a ti debida, one of the best books of love poetry of the twentieth century in Spanish. Dedicated to a single love, it strives for the reader to lose the thread of a linear narrative. It continues in two works: Razón de amor, more sensual, and Largo lamento, which refers to the absence of the beloved. These three books have behind them a loving relationship and a real woman. He explores the feelings of love in all its aspects and processes them through himself. Through love, one can access the knowledge of the universe, and the beloved is a near-divine love that transforms.
Third Stage
Poems from exile whose work is fundamental to the contemplative. He goes to sea; through contemplation, he reaches an elevation with which he approaches the absolute. The sea becomes a symbol of the cosmos and a search for his essence.