Spanish Poetic Mastery: Antonio Machado and Juan Ramón Jiménez

Antonio Machado

The main themes of Antonio Machado's poetry reflect the characteristics of his era and 20th-century literature, which include:

The Existential Problem

The passage of time leading toward death defines his entire poetic body. The presence of death is obsessive in his poems, which explains the tone of sadness, anger, and sorrow. Anyway, the perspective on death is different across his books. In Soledades (Loneliness), death is an experience learned from books. We also find other issues, such as ignoring the problem of God and religion. Machado believed in a religion of life and in the religion of the risen Christ.

Love and Women

The feeling of love does not appear clearly in his poems because it is always used in relation to subsequent concerns. The women in his poems have three different treatments corresponding to three different moments of his career:

• The abstract woman: She is an appearance or a desire that is never realized.
• The particular woman, Leonor: In her, we find reflections on other issues as she appears in a concrete form.
• The particular woman, Guiomar: Inspired by a woman with whom Machado had an affair, she represents a true feeling of love.

The Theme of Spain

We can point out three different periods in his poetry regarding Spain:

1. Lament for the decline of Spain: Here, a very negative view of Castile appears.
2. Transformation: This previous negative view is transformed into tenderness and understanding; this perspective is very subjective, as he came to love the landscape.
3. Hope: The third perspective is one of hope for the future.

Juan Ramón Jiménez

Juan Ramón Jiménez was dedicated fully to poetry throughout his life. His sensitivity influenced his lyrical creation, and his work was immersed in a continuous and permanent process of seeking and creating beauty. His career is usually divided into three phases:

The Three Phases of His Work

• The Sensitive Phase: This first stage of poetry is varied and shows the influence of Romanticism and Bécquer. To this period belong works such as Arias tristes (Sad Arias) and Jardines lejanos (Distant Gardens).
• The Intellectual Stage: The poet refines his verse, pursuing a pure poetry and an intellectual reach for the exact word. From this stage are works such as Piedra y cielo (Stone and Sky) and Poesía (Poetry).
• The Sufficient Stage: In his final years, the desire for perfection, beauty, and eternity led to an ineffable poetry. The poet even arrived at a point of poetically identifying with God. During this time, he wrote works such as La estación total (The Total Station) and Animal de fondo (Animal of the Depth)...