Criticism of Antonio Machado To The Spanish Society

Towards the end of the 19^th century, when people looked for a brighter new future in the new century to come, Spain had lagged behind the rest of Europe, but a new breed of thinkers and writers were emerging and Antonio Machado belongs to a generation of thinkers -“Generation of 98”- whose critical stand was definitive to the introduction of the use of the word “intellectual” into the Spanish language.
These were “intellectuals”, writers and politicians, who were characterized by their deep concern for Spain and who by their nature wanted change. They wanted to protest against the establishment, to re-order Spanish society, They wanted to use new idea’s, the new knowledge which had swept across the rest of western Europe, but had not seemed to have penetrated Spanish society, a society steeped in tradition, unchanging, static and moribund, unaware of the social changes and upheavals that were occurring in the rest of Europe ignorant to new ideas and reluctant to be shaken out of its torpor Spain was sleep walking into a modern age and needed awake up call. They looked to new ideas and to the new knowledge, and social revolutions.
Spain was still a peasant society in the countryside and change was needed and they sought to change that society through literature and thought.
The institutionalization of the concept called Generation of 98 and its application to literature has always been problematic. But there is something important and that everyone agreed and it is to take part of a generation of intellectuals and writers really worried about the “problem of Spain” and its European, political, social and cultural future (IRMAN FOX). The historian Fox often speaks about the search of the national consciousness: “It is nationalism which engenders nations, not the other way around… Nations are made by human will, a nation is a “moral consciousness” (Fox, E.I. “Spain as Castile: Nationalism and National Identity”, p. 24).
In this age the thinkers and intellectuals try redefine what means to be Spanish? And they looked for a national identity which origins, Unamuno said, was going back to the kingdom of Catholic Kings, Isabel and Fernando. Unamuno maintained that the process to draw up a national identity was initiated with the Catholic Kings and the dark Inquisition (Unamuno M. “Sobre la Europeización (arbitrariedades). Ensayos VII. Pág. 167).
The Catholic Kings tried to unify Spain to homogenize and to give shape to the national identity in a period of it history when Spain, was not a state; but it was made up by different and small kingdoms. Well, it can be agreed or disagreed whether or not Unamuno was right. However the fact remains that, like him, other thinkers from Generation of 98, among them Antonio Machado, identified the physic and geographic shape of Castile with the Spanish soul. Castile was the birthplace of El Cid, the greatest medieval hero and also of Don Quixote, the romantic antihero, the pursuer of dreams, the famous knight from La Mancha who all generations accorded honours and lovely memories.
The disaster of 1898 by which Spain lost the last colonies against United States shows a defeated country as empire and deeply injured and despondent and having lost at the same time the great international influence which it had until then. Spain was a country closed to the changes, closed to the European influences and the Industrial Revolution was terribly late, much too late. This disaster was to plunge Spain into a sense of isolation, distrust and disillusionment, which led intellectuals to ask themselves the historical reasons for this loss of identity and Spain’s destiny. It is often said that “that the intellectuals injured Spain”. The politic history of Spain during the 20^th century is full of uncertainty. Two dictatorships and two Republics, in which both conservatives and liberals took power, leading to indecisive government and a confusion of ideas that exacerbated the situation, in a mixture of incoherent thinking and vagueness, Spain lacked direction and leadership, and was felt to be falling behind.
Paramount among these thinkers who demanded change, were Ramón Valle-Inclán, Pío Baroja, Ramiro de Maeztu, Azorín, Antonio Machado and Miguel de Unamuno, although at the time many of them did not recognize there own part in this intellectual movement. In point of fact the Antonio Machado did not see himself as at the forefront of a movement for change, unlike his contemporaries, his second book of poetry Campos de Castilla represents a break with the principles of this “Generation of 98”. The literary criticism has converted to Machado in the great poet of the Generation of 98. He was a poet really concerned with Spanish society, its make up, its passions, its lost oppourtunity, and its sense of loss, and sadness, he expresses this from his student days in Madrid. Machado turned to Castile, as the physic and geographic object of his poetry. Many of his poems from Campos de Castilla such as “A orillas del Duero”, “Por tierras de España”, “Campos de Soria” and “A un olmo seco” describe the problem in terms of natural landscape of Castile and of the working-class.
In the preface of Campos de Castilla, Machado points that “mis romances miran a lo elemental humano, al campo de Castilla y al libro primero de Moisés, llamdo Génesis” (p. 38) (“My romances are looking to the elementary human, to the field of Castile and to the first book of Moses, called Genesis”). The Genesis speaks about a perfect world; which has vanished, disappeared forever, because of mans, frailties and basic misunderstanding of gods creation, the fault was human, the blame human.
Machado draws us to the similarity of Spain position, fallen, paradise lost, and looks back to time when Spain was in its Eden. He draws on Spanish religious tradition and his work is riddled with religious connotations. We can appreciate the situation of both brothers in the poem “La tierra de Alvargonzález”, who we could identify as Cain and Abel and who represent in allegorical form, the contrasting groups of thinkers, whose extremely passive character to Spain the social problems Machado highlights.
There are two groups of individuals to Machado, those who understand the importance of past and the intra-history (influence from Unamuno) and others who are aliens and seem blind to this approach and who hence will never understand the Spanish soul. With this book and specifically with the poem “La tierra de Alvargonzález” you can see reflected both groups. Machado suggests that the first group, might take active part in the regeneration of the society (Nathan, Singh. La presencia de la filosofia de Miguel de Unamuno en la poesia de Antonio Machado ).
The first regenerative ideas from Machado, motivated others to a more radical approach to change, and this lead to a more progressive proposals, and created a climate and sentiment that things had to happen, thinks, Antonio Ramoneda. Ramoneda develops the idea in with his dream of equality and of a democratic Spain, and his hope that the dream will be maintained forever. Like his fellows of generation, he has a nostalgic look to the medieval Spanish splendour from 16th century and in opposite to it, Machado emphasizes the misery and backwardness of the rural Spain owing to its lack of industrialization, to the forced immigration and to the conformism of thinkers and leaders. Nevertheless, Machado does not hide the responsibility and moral misery of its inhabitants. “El héroe épico ha dado paso a los parricidas, movidos por la envidia y la ambición” (“The epic hero has taken step to the parricides, owe to the envy and ambition”) (Ramoneda, Arturo. Introducción a Campos de Castilla, de Antonio Machado).
We can observe the great influence of the Unamuno´s book En torno al casticismo, although Machado seems much more introspective. His poetry, is a poetry that comes from his soul, deep in side, his passion for Spain and its people, his deep love for Spanish culture, and its landscape, Bit by bit his poetry is less subjective, marking his break with his first book of poems Soledades. His poems gains an epic favour, he makes himself spokesperson of the society and wants to be the voice of all.
Machado shows his sadness for Spain and its people: “una España que nace y otra que muere…” (“A Spain that was born and a Spain that has died…”), the poet said. In Campos de Castilla there is a lyrical version and a critical version. Lyrical by his emotional hymn to the beauty of the Castilian landscape and critical because its born from his patriotic passion and concern for the soul of Spain, like we can observe in the poem “Orilla del Duero” or “Por tierras de España” in which he sings to the decadence of Castile, the depopulation, the desertification, the necessity of immigration, as well as the apathy of people or their moral miseries (Doc. Leyendo Campos de Castilla ).
All the greatest themes of Campos de Castilla are already contained in the idea of regeneration and of the “Generation of 98”. This book of poetry was published in 1912 for first time and it collects 54 poems, 9 of them grouped under title of “Campos de Soria”, the extensive poem “La tierra de Alvargonzález”, 29 little poems published with the name of “Proverbios y Cantares”, four free poems and two praises, to Miguel de Unamuno and to Juan Ramón Jiménez. Later, in 1917, it would be published a more complete edition much more bitter and critical than the first one.
Machado uses romance in many of his poems. Some of them, such as “La tierra de Alvargonzález” remind us of the antique literature from the Gold Century, although his poetry has echoes which sound more modern. His language is more descriptive and less complicated than in that time, with fewer of words, concise, but highly expressive. Without any doubt, it is a deliberate use of language which evokes the grandees of the classic tradition and at the same time, makes itself accessible to Spanish people of 20^th century. He never wanted to revive this poetic genre, he was an author, ahead of his time, Modernism was to follow him and his originality, came from his precise use of the language, his adaptation of a classical form brought it up to date and made what was considered archaic and ridiculous accessible, for a new audience to enjoy.
He used the romance, to sing to people and to the land of Castile, to express its soul, the Spanish soul, something that he felt that he might to do. When his younger wife died he was in a severe depression and he contemplated suicide, however the success of Campos de Castilla made him reconsider, he had a place in society, he had something to say, something to give to his country, his poems, thoughts and he had not right to destroy something that belonged to a greater good.
He explains this in a letter to his admired Juan Ramón Jiménez, the great poet of next generation.
Nobody has sung to Castile with such spirituality. He speaks to us about the soul of this sober and austere land a land of poets and warriors, of valiant and powerful kings and a land which nurtured a great Empire, now lost and vanished. Fields of yellow and greens where Don Quixote and Sancho, liberated our imagination and made us laugh and cry. Land of splendour and misery; a land which could rise again in the minds of these creative thinkers and writers, so that Spain could believe again in herself.
“A Spain which born and other Spain which died”. In the last poems of Campos de Castilla Machado seems already to believe in a Spain totally new and declares finally his faith and trust in the future. He tells us so in the preface of his book, a declaration of principles as a man who loved deeply his country and his poetry.