The Poetry of Juan Ramón Jiménez and Antonio Machado
Juan Ramón Jiménez (Moguer 1881 – Puerto Rico 1958)
There are constant búsquedas in J.R.J.’s peculiar quest to explain his work’s evolution. These are summaries of the many critical explorations of the stages of Spanish poetry from Modernismo to other proper forms. The evolution of his work can be divided into three stages:
1st Stage: The Sensitive Stage (1915 – early 1920s)
Early books: Jiménez began to write at 17 years old. His sample poems are of a post-romantic, Bécquerian tone – adolescent. However, the influence of Modernism is seen very early on, as in his first books, Ninphas and Almas de violeta. In 1903, his book Arias Tristes was released to great public acclaim. In this work, we encounter nascent poetic anxieties from which evident forms evolve. The Bécquerian accents are sentiments of solitude, melancholy, the passage of time, Death, and elements of Neo-romanticism that penetrate the Modernist spirit. But the use of octaves and sober language situate him on the margins of the ornamental Modernism, and even online, sir. In his later books, we encounter other secrets written between 1903 and 1907: Jardines Lejanos, Pastorales, or Baladas de primavera.
Guises of Modernism: Between 1908 and 1915, J.R. composed poems such as Elejías, La Soledad Sonora, Poemas Mágicos y Dolientes, Sonetos Espirituales… In these works, he adopts characteristics of Modernism: the utilization of color, brilliant adjectives, certain images, etc. There is also no lack of compositions in the style of Juan Ramón Jiménez, which increasingly foreshadows the purification of language. Diario de un poeta recién casado represents a definitive step in this stage.
2nd Stage:
This first clear step represents the approach to a new awareness, reaching a position of personalism. During his trip to New York for his wedding, the poet kept a journal. Later, a bare poetry resulted, in which brief, unrhymed poems and prose poems predominate. There are also books like Eternidades, Piedra y Cielo, Poesía, and Belleza. His words seek to penetrate the essence, becoming an instrument that seeks reality in a new intelligence. This was the era of books like Estación Total, in which he observes the desire to abolish time and the desire for eternity.
3rd Stage: Sufficient or Verdadera
During his exile in America, his poetic search continued. Two major books correspond to this stage: Animal de Fondo and Dios Deseado y Deseante. The former emphasizes space, while the latter highlights the craving for eternity.
Conclusion: His concern centers on a way of conceiving poetry: a solitary search for absolute Beauty. As a result, he served as a lighthouse for poets and components of the Generation of ’27.
Poetry of Antonio Machado
Antonio Machado transcended the traditional poetic by using symbolist procedures and created a strong emotional poetry possessed of great introspection.
Poetic and Themes
Machado’s poetry has been defined as a”dialogue of man with his time” He valued intuitive thought, lived and temporary, unlike logical thinking based on concepts.
Time stands as one of Machado’s major themes. Others, like dream and love, have a common root: the concern for the temporal.
Time
Machado cared about lived time. The poet talks with his time: morning, afternoon, evening, water, or the source, all symbols of temporality. His poetry swims in a feeling of anguish at the passage of time, but also refers to temporality as fluidity and mobility.
The procedure by which Machado overlaps times had the mission to convey the impression of time’s irreparable steps and the resulting feeling of melancholy.
The Dream and Love
For Machado, dreaming is the only form of knowledge. In it, boredom is the dominant emotional note. In his verses, besides man, nature dreams as a projection of the poet.
In his work, there is little eroticism. In his poetry are incorporated bitter allusions to the lack of love, which can be glimpsed as the cause of his sadness, along with the idea that their opportunity has passed.
Soledades. Galerías. Otros poemas
Soledades was published in 1903. In the second edition, Galerías, elements that were too loud or external are added and deleted, replaced by an intimate and simple feeling. This book shows a perceived preference for certain environments: gloomy gardens and melancholy autumn sunsets.
Soledades‘ topics are the passage of time, dreams, and lost youth. In general, poetic reactions are expressed about nature and the problem of death.
Soledades is characteristic of the way of dialogue with the seasons, sunrise, night… all of which are personified.
Symbols of Machado in Soledades
- The afternoon: the favorite space-time, a symbol of decline and decay. For Machado, it is the time of sadness, slowness, and melancholy.
- Water and the source: with these elements, Machado creates a complex symbol that expresses the antithesis of joy/pain:
- Water is a symbol of life in his more youthful poetry. But it also symbolizes the monotony and boredom of life, the eternity of pain.
- The source requests memory, but the poet pursues evocations of joy and love, and reveals a past source of sorrow.
- The orchard and garden:
- The garden symbolizes hope, joy, and light in childhood memory.
- The garden is linked to the afternoon and the source. It is also very wet, dark, and gloomy. In the opposition between free nature and nature under control, Machado leaned towards freedom.
Campos de Castilla
Campos de Castilla has a more direct referentiality than symbolic. Now images correspond to a real landscape.
In Campos de Castilla, Machado deliberately turns his gaze outward: toward the landscape, people, and history.
The underlying theme of the earliest poems is the decline of Spain, the character of its inhabitants. Machado evokes the real landscape, but the descriptions become meditations.
The play is also facing the conundrum of life and assaulted by religious concerns. It also includes formal and thematic developments:
- The”Proverbs and Songs” a set of very short poems, most of a judgmental character, and”Parables” which is often the problem of the”other”
Subsequent Production
Some poems from New songs remind Campos de Castilla, in others it appears the Andalusian countryside. In this collection of poems abound short compositions inspired by folk tradition, and pithy and aphoristic poems. Machado’s poetic work concludes with a score of texts that have been called poetry of war.