Antonio Machado

Antonio Machado was born in Seville in 1875, the second of five brothers, in the midst of a liberal family. In 1883 the whole family moves to Madrid. Machado studied in the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, which had been founded by a friend of his father. After this, he finished his studies in two schools in Madrid, San Isidro and Cardenal Cisneros.



He travels frequently to Paris, where he meets Rubén Darío and works for a few months in the publishing company Garnier. In Madrid he takes part in the literary and theatre world, and becomes part of the troupe of María Guerrero and Fernando Díaz de Mendoza. In 1907 Machado gets the French Chair in Soria, and afterwards he travels to Paris with a scholarship to study philosophy with Bergson and Bédier. His wife dies (they had only been married for 3 years) and he asks to be moved to Baeza (Jaén) where he continued to teach Spanish from 1912 to 1919.

He moves to Segovia, wanting to be closer to Madrid, and spends some years contributing to the University of Segovia. In 1927 he becomes a member of the Real Academia Española and a year later he meets the poet Pilar de Valderrama (Guiomar in his poems), with whom he has a secret relationship for years. In 1932 he moved back to Madrid.



During the 20's and 30's Machado writes plays in collaboration with his brother Manuel. During the Spanish Civil War he stays in Madrid and contributes to the Republican publications. In 1939 he's evacuated to Valencia, where he writes for the publication "La Hora de España" and takes part in the International Congress of Writers for the Defense of Culture. From there he moves to Barcelona, where he crosses the Pyrenees to Collioure. He dies in Collioure in 1939.