“Did you say half the truth? They will say that you lie twice
if you say the other half ”
Too many years since he left us Antonio Machado. The writer and poet, the youngest representative of the 98 generation, has left behind a prolific literary trail. Dedicating himself mainly to poetry, he did not cease to feel the terrain of prose and dramaturgy.
Born in Seville, at a very young age he moved with his family to Madrid, where he would be trained at the Free Institution of Education. A school that marked him for life, marking his intellectual and humanistic attitude. Regular to the bohemian life of the Spanish capital in his youth, he lived in different parts of the peninsula, until he lived in specific times in Paris.
“Those who are always back from everything are
those who have never gone anywhere. ”
Even so, one of the most remembered locations of his life (and of which he became a prodigal son), was Soria. There he met Leonor, 19 years younger than him, a love he got to marry. Although the link was fleeting due to the sudden death of the young woman from tuberculosis. This loss marked him deeply just when he had just published one of his best known works, Castile Fields.
“Whenever I deal with country men I think
in how much they know and we ignore,
and in what little it matters to them to know how much we know ”
To consult all his poetic work, you should take a look at the volume Complete Poems. An edition by Manuel Alvar that brings together his work, not only the one published properly in books, but also the one he wrote during the Civil War or other texts that have been stratified in time. An essential reading for lovers of the author, to know his writing. To face the most portentous Machado.
“That two and two are necessarily four, is
An opinion that many of us share. But if someone
Sincerely think otherwise, say so. Not here
we are amazed at anything. ”
Of republican character, at the beginning of the Civil War he had to plan his exile to France in different sections. His journey left him indented, also for some of the losses he had along the way: to name one, his friend Lorca was killed. Juan Ramón Jiménez was the one who insisted to leave his homeland, next to a caravan of intellectuals. To learn more about these authors in such a specific military stage of the Spanish past, you can read the work of Ian Gibson, Four poets at war.
In this book, the Hispanic author, a native of Dublin, covers the lives of four Republican authors: Juan Ramón Jiménez, Federico García Lorca, Miguel Hernández and, of course, Antonio Machado. A quartet of intellectuals who meet in their tragic end for a cause.
“Death is something we should not fear
because, while we are, death is not
and when death is, we are not ”
Machado would die in France, after trying to escape the disaster. There a voice would be extinguished from which a clear echo comes to us.
To prevent the disaster of the generations, the one that causes gaps to be opened between different ages, and that the little ones do not become familiar with great authors if it is not by chance or obligation during their education; we also propose the reading of My first Machado. A work illustrated by Oscar del Amo that brings together different poems of the author, so that children can have their first contact with this genre and with Machado.
A small tribute from PlanetadeLibros to this author and his work.