Sottocodice iconico ed esoterico in alcuni esempi di Manuel Machado

Abstract

By the end of the XIX Century, literary habits inevitably had to adapt to new communicative reference points, whereby the poetic word turned into an essential tool for conveying a symbolic plurality intimately anchored to the deepest regions of the human soul. On the one hand, this shift entailed the creation of a theoretical system based on the assimilation of different artistic mediums; on the other, it implied the search for deeper meanings, which would chane poetry into a kind of deviated theology, made of mental trips, sensorial overexcitements and arcane contemplations. Precisely in this context, the brand new forms of religious mysticism, which shared with modernistic sensibility the abandonment of the dogma and the interest in inner shapes, which influenced creative activities in Europe . In response to such a phenomena, a few fin de siecle poets, such as Verlaine, Ruben Dario and Manuel Machado committed to the new decadent and symbolist taste, aware of the inadequacy of the ‘functional’ word, in a world already diminished by the never-ending trade of juju objects: their act of rebellion towards a canonized tradition eventually imposed the renovation of some aesthetic principles tied to the consumption, contemplation and crossing of artistic products. Those features are now considered chaotic containers of signs, physical simulacrums of an instable and hardly graspable transcendent reality. This paper offers some interpretations of Alma (1902), the first Manuel Machado’s poetic collection that succeeds in melting together iconic forms and esoteric ecstasy by an original and highly evocative expressive manner.