The Painful Gift: Critical Phases in the Poetry of Machado, Lorca, and Espriu

Abstract

More than in earlier periods, twentieth-century poets have regarded the subject of poetry and the role of the poet as material appropriate for the poem itself rather than for merely theorizing about poetry. This essay explores how such a metapoetic preoccupation is manifested in the work of three poets who, in differing ways, illustrate Wallace Stevens' observation that 'the interest of the poem is not in its meaning but in [.] the achieving of an individual reality'. In the case of Antonio Machado the achievement at crisis point takes the form of emotional evolution and resolution; with Federico García Lorca, it is a matter of poetic identity and maturity; for Salvador Espriu it is the engagement with history and the political moment.