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Machado Antonio 1875 - 1939 (64)

Don't try to rush things: for the cup to run over, it must first be filled.


QUOTES

Cantares…

All goes, and all remains,
but our task is to go,
to go creating roads
roads through the sea.
My songs never chased
after glory to remain
in human memory.
I love the subtle worlds
weightless and charming,
worlds like soap-bubbles

Antonio Machado was a Spanish poet, born in Seville on 26 July 1875. He spent his youth in Madrid where he studied and simultaneously began to publish satirical texts in newspapers and magazines. In 1899 and 1902 he lived in Paris and in 1903 he published his first poetry collection. He worked as a France teacher at the Institute of Soria. In 1912 he published his second collection of poems which is considered his most important project, the "Fields of Castile". That year his wife died –they had married in 1909-, and he was devastating, his deep sadness reflected in a series of poems who added in the “Fields of Castile”. He resigned from the Institute of Soria and went to live in Baeza, Andalucia. From 1924 he stops poetry and began a philosophical work, a hypothetical dialogue between poets; he also wrote plays with his brother Manuel. The outbreak of the Civil War found him in Madrid. Antonio spoke openly on the side of the Democrats, he wrote speeches and articles against the fascists. At the same time his brother wrote dithyrambs in favor of Franco having joined the ranks of the fascists. The division of Machado brothers reflects the division of Spain in the civil war. When Franco’s forces seemed to prevail over the democrats, Machado left Madrid and went to Valencia and later he followed the democratic government in Barcelona. With the collapse of Catalonia and three days before Franco's troops invention in Barcelona, Machado left the city with his decrepit mother. At the France border had been created a chaotic situation by the refugees, he was forced to leave their bags and continued on foot. Machado had to carry his mother on his back, in the end they managed to reach Collioure in France. They settled in an old hotel with hundreds of other refugees but he suffered form pneumonia because of the exhaustion and without proper medical care, he died 2 days later, on February 22, 1939. His mother died 3 days after him.