Machado’s Poetic Language: Style, Symbols & Philosophy
Poetry and Philosophy in Machado
Machado always saw a relationship between the poetic and the philosophical. Philosophers learned the art of metaphors from poets: Heraclitus’s river, Plato’s cave, Pythagoras’s lyre, etc. However, Machado perceived insurmountable barriers: the philosopher thinks outside of time, while the poet thinks within their own life in time. The philosopher uses logical thinking; the poet uses poetic thinking. The former captures essence. Machado stated the philosopher’s thought aims to abolish time, assuming it doesn’t exist. The poet’s thought relies on intuitions. Machado sought to make vital time timeless (intemporalizar). He believed timeless poetry is achieved by emphasizing the time of the poem (‘the word in time’). The nature of lyric poetry is based on the temporal expression of the individual, psychological, and subjective. Poetry is the expression of feelings, speaking from the heart. In a sense, it involves a collaboration with other subjects or perspectives. The poet, delving into the depths (honduras) of their soul, ‘sees the universal feeling’.
Symbolism in Machado’s Poetry
His symbols can be monosemic (single meaning): life as a journey towards death, the road symbolizing life, interior galleries as labyrinths of the soul or mind where finding oneself is difficult. His poetry is dominated by symbols with dual meanings: logical and irrational. Words in his poems act as associative sets, creating an emotional climate. The apparent subject often serves merely as a medium or support for the core emotions. This represents a shift from rationalist objectivism to irrational subjectivism in art. Machado’s work constitutes a cosmos. His poetry is simultaneously intriguing and intimate, especially in his later years. Both early and later periods feature abundant symbols. He moves from initial insights to the critical, reformist perspective of Campos de Castilla. Key signifiers include: mirror, dream, fountain, sea, light, shadow. Shadow is one of the most frequently used symbols, rich in nuances. His poetic language employs polysemic symbols (multiple meanings).
Other Means of Expression in Poetry
Lexicon
- Feelings of old age, sadness, death, and acute intuition inspire words or expressions reflecting the decline of things or human beings.
- Words translating anguish, boredom, tedium, lost youth, melancholy.
- Somber, dull tones (gray, black, dusty) representing anxiety and life’s boredom.
- Sensitivity to vivid daylight in its various hues and moments.
- Time as a fundamental topic of inspiration and reflection leads to a specific, though reduced, vocabulary. A key aspect is the interplay of these words with adverbs like ‘today’ and ‘yesterday’.
- Alternation between dream and reality.
- Attention to the soul, the supernatural, the spiritual world (wonderful or fantastic) with an obsessive lexicon.
- Varied adjectival resources, from epithets to synesthesia.
Stylistic and Expressive Procedures
- Humanization or personification of things, allowing communication with surroundings, or a twinned vision of landscapes, people, and history.
- Use of exclamation to convey emotion towards objects, people, or landscape elements, often accompanied by a nominal style.
- Direct questioning related to existential issues, sometimes found in satirical poems.
- Frequent use of monologues and dialogues.
- A notable taste for suspension or aposiopesis (reluctance).
Metric
- Preferred meters: octosyllable and hendecasyllable, sometimes combined with the heptasyllable.
- Stanzas used: sonnets, serventesios (ABAB quatrains), and cuartetas (abab quatrains). From Modernism: the pareado (couplet). From popular tradition: the silva and the romance. Also used: the seguidilla and the soleá.
- Employs many traditional song forms.