Manuel Machado
Manuel Machado y Ruiz was a prominent Spanish poet born on August 29, 1874, in Seville. He was influenced early on by his father, a journalist and flamenco poetry collector, which immersed him in the vibrant café culture that inspired much of his work. Educated at the Institución Libre de Enseñanza in Madrid, Machado developed a keen sense of observation and imagination, which he later infused into his poetry. He published his first major work, "Alma," in 1900 and followed it with notable collections that established his reputation as a key figure in the introduction of Modernism to Spain, characterized by themes of spiritual disillusionment and complex emotional expression.
Despite a few later works receiving mixed reviews, Machado's contributions to poetry were significant, with his experiments in traditional Spanish metrics marking a transformative moment in the nation's literary history. He also ventured into theater writing alongside his brother Antonio, achieving considerable success. In the political context of his time, Machado navigated the challenges of the Spanish Civil War and wrote propaganda for Francisco Franco's regime after the conflict. He passed away on January 19, 1947, and is remembered for his impactful legacy in Spanish poetry, particularly his role in modernizing its form and content.
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Manuel Machado
Poet
- Born: August 29, 1874
- Birthplace: Seville, Spain
- Died: January 19, 1947
- Place of death: Madrid, Spain
Biography
Manuel Machado was born Manuel Machado y Ruiz in Seville, Spain, on August 29, 1874, the son of Antonio Machado Alvarez and his wife, Ana Ruiz. His father, a journalist and collector of flamenco poetry as well as the founder of the first folklore society in Spain, served as one of Machado’s earliest influences by introducing him to the café life that would soon serve as a source of inspiration. A second influence was the progressive school he began attending at the age of nine, the Institución Libre de Enseñanza in Madrid, where the curriculum included field trips designed to stimulate the powers of observation and imagination. Machado completed a university degree in Seville around 1897 and became engaged to Eulalia Cáceres, though they did not marry until 1910.
In 1899, he went to Paris to work as a translator and met many prominent writers. Absorbing their works and conversations, as well as the ideas of the writers he was translating, led to the writing and publication of his first major book of verse, Alma, in Madrid in 1900. This book and the two immediately following it— Caprichos (1905), dedicated to and somewhat imitative of friend and fellow poet Rubén Darío’s work, and La fiesta nacional: Rojo y negro (1906), inspired by a friend who was a bullfighter—are the works on which Machado’s reputation is based. His poems introduced Modernism to Spain, with its spiritual disillusionment and emphasis on feelings that cannot be articulated in words. Machado’s experiments with, and changes to, traditional Spanish meters were groundbreaking events in the history of the nation’s poetry.
His next volume of poetry, Alma. Museo. Los cantares (1907), was largely a reprint of most of his earlier work with a few new pieces added, most of which were less inspired and more clichéd. This volume was poorly received even among Machado’s friends, and Machado responded by writing a collection of what he called bad poems, El mal poema (1909), which he claimed resulted from having neither the time nor the financial freedom to write good poetry. Although Machado continued to write and publish his poetry throughout the remainder of his life, his later poetry did not achieve the sustained quality of his earlier work. His collection of articles defending Modernism, La guerra literaria (1913), did receive good reviews, however, and some of the plays he wrote between 1926 and 1932 with his brother Antonio met with great success.
Nonetheless, Marchado was an influential figure during his lifetime, serving as a symbol of poetry and arguing the cases of writers who had become politically suspect to Spanish leader Francisco Franco, for whom Machado wrote propaganda poems after Franco won the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Machado died on January 19, 1947. To his contemporaries, Machado was best known for his flamenco poetry. Today he is credited with introducing Modernism to Spain and contributing to its growth there.