The Poetry of Juan Ramón Jiménez and Antonio Machado
Juan Ramón Jiménez (Moguer 1881 – Puerto Rico 1958)
There are constant búsquedas in Juan Ramón Jiménez (JRJ) that peculiarly explain the evolution of his work. These are summarized in numerous critical journeys through the history of Spanish poetry, from Modernism to the avant-garde forms. The evolution of JRJ is divided into the following three phases:
1st Phase: Sensitive Stage (1900-1915)
The first books: JRJ began to write at 17 years old. His sample poems are of a post-romantic, Bécquerian tone, adolescent. However, the influence of Modernism is also accused very soon, as seen in his first books, Ninfeas and Almas de violeta. In 1903, his book Arias Tristes was a great public success. In this work, we find a nascent poetic voice from which the forms are evident. The Bécquerian accent, the sentiments of solitude, melancholy, the passage of time, death, are themes of Neo-Romanticism that are contrasted with the Modernist spirit. But the use of octaves, this sober language, are situated on the margins of the ornamental and even the Modernist lord. In his later books, we find other encounters between 1903 and 1907: Jardines Lejanos, Pastorales, or Baladas de primavera.
Garments of Modernism: Between 1908 and 1915, J.R. composed poems: Elegías, La Soledad Sonora, Poemas Mágicos y Dolientes, Sonetos Espirituales… In these works, he adopts characteristics of Modernism: the use of color, the brilliant adjective, certain images, etc. There is also no lack of compositions in the style of the prose poem that increasingly announce the desired purification of the poetic language. To this definitive stage corresponds his memorable Platero y yo.
2nd Phase: Intellectual Stage (1916-1936)
This first clear step represents the arrival at a new awareness, reaching a personal position. During his trip to New York, motivated by his wedding, the poet kept a diary. Later, a bare poetry resulted, in which short, unrhymed poems and prose poems predominate. There are also books: Eternidades, Piedras y Cielo, Poesía, Belleza. His word “quiero” seeks to penetrate into reality through a new intelligence. This was the book that stood out for its title, Diario de un poeta recién casado, in which he observes the desire to abolish time and the desire for eternity.
3rd Stage: True Stage (1936-1958)
During his exile in America, JR continues his poetic search. Two great books correspond to this stage: “On the Other Side of” and “Space.” In the poem Dios deseado y deseante, the longing for eternity stands out.
Conclusion
JR’s obsession is the conception of poetry: a solitary search for absolute Beauty and, therefore, a beacon for poets. He was part of the poetic group “Generación del 27.”
Poetry of Antonio Machado
Antonio Machado exceeded the traditional poetic by symbolist procedures and created a strong emotional poetry possessed of great introspection.
Poetic and Themes
Machado’s poetic thought has been defined as a “dialogue of man with his time.” He thought of intuition as lived, temporary, unlike logical thinking based on concepts.
Time stands as one of Machado’s major themes. The others, 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 fountain, 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 overlapped times had the mission to convey the impression of the irreparable step of time 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.
Solitudes, Galleries, Other Poems
Solitudes was published in 1903. In the second edition, Galleries are added and the too loud or external is deleted, which is replaced by an intimate and simple feeling. This book shows a perceived preference for certain environments: the gardens, gloomy sunsets, and melancholy autumn.
Solitudes‘ topics are the passage of time, dreams, and lost youth. In general, poetic reactions are expressed about nature and the problem of death.
Solitudes is characteristic of the way of dialogue with the seasons, sunrise, night… that is personified.
Symbols of Machado in Solitudes
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 Fountain
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, boredom of life, and eternity of pain.
- The fountain requests the memory, but the poet pursues evocations of joy and love, and reveals a past source of sorrow.
The Orchard and the Garden
- The garden symbolizes hope, joy, and light in the childhood memory.
- The garden is linked to the afternoon and the fountain. It is also very wet, dark, and gloomy. In the opposition between free nature and nature under canon, Machado was leaning 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 and 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.”
- “Seven poems about the death of Leo.”
- “Land of Alvargonzález” about the legendary human evil. In their fratricidal history, envy and greed for land come together.
Subsequent Production
Some poems from New Songs remind us of Campos de Castilla; in others, the Andalusian countryside appears. 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.