Antonio Machado‘s poem A un olmoseco’ from his book, Campos de Castilla was written in Soria in 1912 .The poem, like others in Campos de Castilla, is a piece of landscape literature contributing to the work of Spain’s Generacion del 98 (Generation of 98). The poem, set in the Sorian landscape, tells of an old elm tree, which although rotting and dying has a few new leaves sprouting from it. Throughout the poem, Machado expresses his intimate feelings, both with regards to his personal relationship and post-war, Spanish society. In this commentary, metrics and structure, the Generation of 98 and Castile, as well as metaphors and lexical choice will be discussed in order to demonstrate this argument.
The poem consists of two quatrains, two …show more content…
Machado’s description of the decayed parts of the tree “musgo amarillento” and “tronco carcomido y polvoriento” provoke a strong image in the minds of his readers and may portray that like the elm, she carries an illness which is killing her, yet the new sprouting leaves represent Machado’s hope of her recovery. Leonor was not mentioned in his poetry until after her death, but Macrí Oreste claimed that she was incorporated in his poetry through the Sorian myth and ‘the half-dead elm tree’ …show more content…
The comparison of the two may imply the way in which Machado compared Spain, to the rest of healthy, progressive Western Europe, conveying his desire for Spain to modernise too. On a more personal level, the singing poplars could be symbolic of what his wife used to be and could have been if it hadn’t been for her illness. Moreover, according to Orozco Diaz has noted that the road is the most repeated symbol in all of Machado’s poetry and may act as a reflection of the human experience.
The fifth stanza takes the form of a monologue as Machado speaks to the elm in first person, which reflects the intensity of his emotional attachment to the elm. Moreover, his use of the rhetorical figure apostrophe (direct address) portrays the elm as a sentient being, treating it as if it were capable of response, thus evoking his readers to feel greater empathy for it, like they would for a human. This use of personification here, also reinforces the idea that Machado is expressing his feelings for his dying wife, rather than the
The poem consists of two quatrains, two …show more content…
Machado’s description of the decayed parts of the tree “musgo amarillento” and “tronco carcomido y polvoriento” provoke a strong image in the minds of his readers and may portray that like the elm, she carries an illness which is killing her, yet the new sprouting leaves represent Machado’s hope of her recovery. Leonor was not mentioned in his poetry until after her death, but Macrí Oreste claimed that she was incorporated in his poetry through the Sorian myth and ‘the half-dead elm tree’ …show more content…
The comparison of the two may imply the way in which Machado compared Spain, to the rest of healthy, progressive Western Europe, conveying his desire for Spain to modernise too. On a more personal level, the singing poplars could be symbolic of what his wife used to be and could have been if it hadn’t been for her illness. Moreover, according to Orozco Diaz has noted that the road is the most repeated symbol in all of Machado’s poetry and may act as a reflection of the human experience.
The fifth stanza takes the form of a monologue as Machado speaks to the elm in first person, which reflects the intensity of his emotional attachment to the elm. Moreover, his use of the rhetorical figure apostrophe (direct address) portrays the elm as a sentient being, treating it as if it were capable of response, thus evoking his readers to feel greater empathy for it, like they would for a human. This use of personification here, also reinforces the idea that Machado is expressing his feelings for his dying wife, rather than the