After Antonio Machado’s death, his brother found a scrap of paper in the poet’s coat pocket bearing his last known line of verse: “These blue days and this sun of childhood.” Even in exile, Machado’s thoughts had returned to his Spanish childhood. [1]
On 26 July 1875, Antonio Machado, one of Spain’s greatest poets, was born in Seville to Antonio Machado Álvarez and Ana Ruiz Hernández. His father, a writer and scholar of folklore, collected traditional songs and stories, giving Antonio an early appreciation of the popular literature of his country. These influences would remain important throughout his life.
In 1883, the family moved to Madrid, where Antonio and his brother Manuel attended the Institución Libre de Enseñanza. Its progressive teachers encouraged independent thought and introduced the boys to literature, art and nature. Machado retained a lifelong affection for these teachers, although his later experience of conventional schooling was less rewarding. An enthusiastic reader, he continued his education among the books of Spain’s National Library.
Visits to Paris widened his literary horizons. He worked as a translator for the publisher Garnier and met Rubén Darío, whose work was transforming Spanish-language poetry. Machado’s first collection, Soledades, appeared in 1903, exploring dreams, memory and the passing of time. It won the admiration of leading writers, and he revised and expanded it in 1907 as Soledades, galerías y otros poemas.
That year, Machado became a French teacher in Soria. The surrounding countryside gave him a new subject, and Campos de Castilla (1912) combined descriptions of the Castilian landscape with reflections on Spain’s history and its future. This became one of his most important books, establishing him as a leading voice of the Generation of ’98, writers concerned with the need for renewal in Spanish life.
The death of his wife Leonor in 1912 brought profound grief, and he moved to Baeza, where he continued teaching, writing and studying philosophy. His Poesías completas appeared in 1917, and the following year he completed a university degree in philosophy.
In later life, he also wrote plays with Manuel and supported the Spanish Republic, eventually fleeing the Civil War into France, where he died at Collioure on 22 February 1939.
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