Manuel Machado Ruiz (1874-1947) was a Spanish poet and playwright who developed his work within the profiles of Modernism. He was the brother of Antonio Machado, also a poet, and just as blood brought them together, so did friendship. There were many anecdotes and the work they did together.
Manuel was influenced by his father's work as a researcher and scholar of Spanish folklore. Then he was able to mix his taste for traditions with his personality and affinity for the modern and cosmopolitan. The most relevant works of the writer were Sing deep Y The bad poem.
Article index
Manuel Machado was born on August 29, 1874 in Seville. His parents were Antonio Machado Álvarez, writer and folklorist; and Ana Ruiz Hernández.
He was the oldest of four siblings: Antonio, Rafael, Ana, José, Joaquín, Francisco and Cipriana. With Antonio he created an unbreakable bond.
The first nine years of Manuel Machado's life were spent in his hometown in the company of his family, who gave him all the love and attention. He had a happy childhood, imbued with the tranquility and beauty of Seville.
Some time later his family made the decision to go to Madrid so that the children could receive a better education. Once in the Spanish capital, he began studying at the well-known Instituto de Libre Enseñanza. Then he attended high school at the San Isidro and Cardenal Cisneros schools..
Manuel Machado entered the University of Seville at the age of eighteen to study philosophy and letters; He graduated on November 8, 1897. Later he met his brother Antonio and together they began to frequent the cafes and literary gatherings of Madrid..
After putting an end to the carefree life he had in the Spanish capital, the young Manuel went to Paris in 1898. In the French city he began to work as a translator at the then well-known Garnier publishing house. That was the time when he published his first book entitled Soul.
The life of Manuel Machado was enriching and full of learning. While in the city of light, he had the opportunity to meet and befriend important writers and literary critics at that time, such as Rubén Darío, Amado Nervo and Enrique Gómez Carrillo..
In 1903 the Sevillian poet returned to Spain, and from that moment on his literary activity did not stop. He made collaborations for the magazine Black and white and also for the newspaper ABC. During those years the playwright began his steps in the theater.
In that same year, the theatrical comedy premiered in Seville Love on the fly, that did not have the significance that he expected. Two years later, in 1905, he published Whims; his brother José Machado was in charge of the illustration.
Manuel entered the maturity stage being a recognized and beloved writer, there were many works that he developed before reaching this stage of his life. Likewise, he demonstrated his ability and efficiency to carry out administrative positions related to literature..
In 1913, when he was thirty-nine years old, he held the position of official of the Facultative Body of Archivists, Librarians and Archaeologists of Santiago de Compostela; then it was changed to the National Library of Madrid. In addition, he was director of the municipal library and museum of the Spanish capital..
The poet also served as a journalist. At the end of the First World War, he traveled to various countries in Europe as a correspondent for the Spanish newspaper. The liberal. Later, in 1921, he published his work Ars moriendi, a collection of poems considered by scholars of his work as his best work.
In the early 1920s Manuel considered the decision to retire from poetry; he thought his had an expiration date. However, he continued to write theater with his brother Antonio. One of the works with the greatest receptivity was La Lola goes to the ports, from the year 1929.
When the Spanish civil war broke out in 1936, the poet was in Burgos, in the company of his wife of more than thirty years, Eulalia Cáceres, whom he met in his university years. The situation in the country kept him away from his family.
The poet was jailed on December 29 of that same year for two days after he gave a statement about the war to a French media. Two years later he was appointed a member of the Royal Spanish Academy.
From his old age are the works The comedian's verses Y The Crown of Sonnets, the latter in honor of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, son of the eponymous dictator.
In 1939 he learned of the death of his brother Antonio and his mother. Collioure left with his wife and then returned to Burgos.
Manuel Machado wrote until the end of his days. He died in the city of Madrid on January 19, 1947, his funeral was attended by many intellectuals and politicians.
His body was buried in the La Almudena cemetery. After his death, his wife dedicated herself to the care of needy children.
By writing poetry, he felt free enough to make his work free. He did not let the metric guide him, but rather wrote the way he wanted and felt. He was influenced by the French Paul Marie Verlaine and the Nicaraguan Rubén Darío.
In relation to his way of writing, in many cases he followed in the footsteps of his father in terms of the propagation of Andalusian folklore, he even had great ability for flamenco and his popular cante hondo. The Seguidillas, the Coplas and the Soleares were the main structures that he used.
Manuel Machado was creative, witty, and light in his poetry. As for his prose work, this was pretty straightforward; unlike many writers of his day, he made little use of adjectives. In the theater he coincided with his brother in the ideas of comedy and tragedy.
From the political point of view, the ideology of Manuel Machado was initially oriented towards the defense of democracy and civil liberties. He was a man of peaceful thoughts and solutions who believed in a Spain that was the fruit of work and innovation..
However, when the Civil War broke out in 1936 he was a supporter of the Spanish Falangism founded by the son of the dictator Primo de Rivera. That movement was a copy of the fascism of Italy, which meant proposals of absolutism and totalitarianism.
Manuel's decision to join this movement surprised many: first, because he was never attached to any type of political party; and secondly, because it was not consistent with their democratic sentiment. So his close friends considered that it was more to survive than to sympathize.
Manuel Machado's work was developed within poetry, theater, novels, translations and essays; however, he is recognized most of all for his verses and plays. In the case of poetry, its activity began with Sad and happy (1894) and Etc (1895).
The most important period of his work was between 1900 and 1909. It was considered his most prolific period and, also, the time in which he published his most important works. Such is the case of Soul (1902), which is an Andalusian reflection -due to the verses- of his thinking about love and death.
In relation to his prose works, he began in 1913 with Love and death, which dealt with a series of short stories. Machado showed how much influence Rubén Darío had on him given the way he wrote some stories.
The most important works of Manuel Machado in the literary genres that he developed are mentioned below:
- Sad and happy (1894).
- Etc (1895, with the collaboration of the writer and journalist Enrique Paradas).
- Soul (1902).
- Whims (1905-1908).
- The songs (1905).
- The national holiday (1906).
- The bad poem (1909).
- Apollo (1911).
- Trophies (1911).
- Sing deep (1912).
- Songs and dedications (1915).
- Seville and other poems (1918).
- Ars moriendi (1921).
- Phoenix (1936).
- Golden hours (1938).
- Poetry opera omnia lyrica (1940).
- Cadences of cadences (1943).
- Schedule, religious poems (1947).
Of Machado's essays, there were three of the largest:
- The literary war (written between the years 1898 and 1914).
- A year of theater (1918).
- Day by day of my calendar (1918, it was also known as Memorandum of Spanish life of 1918).
The plays of the Spanish poet and playwright are the result of a joint work with his brother Antonio Machado. The following stood out:
- Misfortunes of fortune or Julianillo Valcárcel (1926).
- Juan de Mañara (1927).
- Oleanders (1928).
- La Lola goes to the ports (1929, one of the most important and covered).
- Cousin Fernanda (1931).
- The Duchess of Benamejí (1932).
- The man who died in the war (1928).
The novel was also to Manuel's taste, even though his work within this literary genre was not so prolific and outstanding. However, the best-known titles of the author can be mentioned:
- Love on the fly (1904).
- Love and death (1913).
Manuel made the translation into Spanish of several European writers. Some of the most important works were the following:
- Gallant parties, by the French Paul Verlaine (1911).
- Ethics, by the Dutchman Baruch Spinoza (1913).
- Complete works, by René Descartes (1920).
- Hernani, by the French Victor Hugo (1928).
This work is divided into nine parts. The first three are related to symbolism, while the following were influenced by the French movement born after Romanticism and known as Parnassianism..
The poems were related to the interiority of the poet, he described the loneliness and forgetfulness that he felt at certain moments in his life. With this work he also addressed the theme of Castile, which opened up for other writers to do the same..
"My will died one moonlit night
in which it was very beautiful not to think or to want ...
My ideal is to lie down without any illusion ...
From time to time a kiss and a woman's name.
In my soul, sister of the afternoon, there are no contours ...
And the symbolic rose of my only passion
It is a flower that is born in unknown lands
and that has no shape, no aroma, no color ".
This work was divided into two parts, each with notable differences. In the first one you can see a poetry full of vitality and joy, in which the form was characterized by lightness and, at the same time, by the perfection that Manuel Machado sought. In the second, the poet returned to melancholy.
“The field and the twilight. A bonfire,
whose smoke slowly rises to the sky.
In the pale sphere
there is not a single cloud.
The smoke rises to the sky,
quiet, from the bonfire ...
And come down like a sovereign duel
the night to the meadow ...
Cain! Cain! What have you done with your brother? ".
It is considered one of the most innovative works of Manuel, taking into account the situation that his country experienced at the time of being conceived. The poet took the opportunity to capture the moment through the visionary freedom of art. In the verses you can see depth and superficiality.
At the same time, the writer managed to integrate elegance and reflection between the cultured and the popular. The language of the work is very natural, with clear evidence of the influences of the aforementioned Verlaine and Rubén Darío. The bad poem is the notoriety of a new poet who began to feel different.
"I, decadent poet,
twentieth century spanish,
that the bulls have praised,
and sung.
The whores and the brandy ...
And the night of Madrid,
and the impure corners,
and the darkest vices
of these great-grandchildren of El Cid:
of so much scoundrel
I must have had enough to be a little;
I'm already sick, and I don't drink anymore
what they said he drank ... ".
The book collected a series of flamenco songs that Manuel wrote throughout his youth, influenced by his father and the memories and experiences of his native Seville. The poet used the soleares and seguiridillas in the structure; it is a tribute to the traditional and popular.
"They have sung us all,
on a night out,
verses that have killed us.
Heart, shut up your grief:
they have sung us all
on a night out.
Malagueñas, soleares,
and gypsy bands ...
Stories of my regrets
and of your bad hours ".
This work (which in Spanish is translated as Art of dying) has a deep poetic expressiveness and touches on the subject of life and death with many nuances of subtlety. In this, Manuel evoked life like a sigh, a dream that ends when he falls asleep forever..
"Dying is ... There is a flower, in the dream
-that, upon awakening, is no longer in our hands-
of impossible aromas and colors ...
and one day without aromas we cut it ...
Life appears like a dream
in our childhood ... then we woke up
to see her, and we walked
the charm looking for him smiling
that we dream first ... ".
It was a play that Manuel Machado wrote together with his brother Antonio. It premiered on March 13, 1927 at the Reina Victoria Theater in the city of Madrid. It was starred by the Spanish actor Santiago Artigas and the Argentine Pepita Díaz.
It was based on the legend of Don Juan, but the writers added some references to the character Miguel Mañara, who was an icon in Seville. Two women long for Juan's love; Elvira, who was evil, had killed her husband and Mañara helps her escape. The tragedy does not wait.
This play was presented for the first time at the Eldorado Theater in Barcelona on April 13, 1928. It is a story of death and seduction; Duchess Araceli seeks answers to the constant nightmares she has with her dead husband Alberto.
After the inquiries that the lady made with her husband's doctor and friend, Carlos Montes, she discovered the dark personality of the deceased and the personality problems he had. Disappointed, the widow sold the properties and fell in love again with a man similar to the dead.
This play by the Machado brothers is one of the most recognized and remembered. They structured it in three acts and it was written in verses. It was premiered on November 8, 1929 in Madrid at the Fontalba Theater, and it has been taken to the theater in three different versions..
It is about the story of a flamenco singer from Cádiz named Lola, whom all men wanted. Don Diego, a rich landowner, wants her for himself; by inviting her to his farm, his son falls in love with her, but that love is not possible.
This work was written in verses and was structured in three acts. Its premiere took place on April 24, 1931 at the Reina Victoria Theater in Madrid. It was the exhibition of a story of love, hate, jealousy and seduction, in which the protagonists are involved in a difficult plot.
Matilde and Leopoldo's marriage, which has always been functional and harmonious, is disturbed when Fernanda came into their lives. The young woman only seeks her own benefit; her cousin fell in love with her and the woman only brought him misfortunes.
Play written in verses and divided into three acts. It premiered on March 26, 1932 at the Spanish Theater. It was set at the beginning of the 19th century and presented the story of the bandit Lorenzo Gallardo during the invasions of Napoleon Bonaparte..
Feeling threatened by the occupation of the Napoleonic troops, Gallardo had to take shelter in the residence of the Duchess of Benamejí, who owed him a favor for having been saved by him long ago. Over time they fall in love and everything ends in pain.
In the case of this play, Manuel and his brother wrote it in prose unlike many others; in addition, they structured it in four acts. It premiered in the city of Madrid on April 8, 1941 at the Spanish Theater. Eleven years later it was presented in Mexico.
It narrated the story of a bourgeois marriage made up of the Marquis de Castellar Don Andrés de Zuñiga and Doña Berta. The husband hid for a long time from his wife that he had a child out of wedlock named Juan, whom he never recognized.
Many years later, when Andrés saw that he could not have children, he looked for the boy to make him his heir and learned that he died in combat during the First World War. Later they discovered that Juan was closer than they ever thought.
Yet No Comments