Las «Galerías» de Antonio Machado: origen y evolución de una metáfora central de su poesía

Abstract

The object of the present article is to explain the sudden appearance of the metaphor «galerías» in the early poetry of A. Machado and the use he made of it. He apparently discovered it in J.-K. Huysmans' À rebours, for whom it had served to characterize the essence of Baudelaire's poetry. This will have inspired Machado's study of Les fleurs du mal as well as a series of poems entitled «galerías», showing thematic and stilistic affinities with Baudelaire's and were published mainly in Helios. Subsequently he integrated the metaphor into the text of several other lyrics and, more important still, chose it as the title of a section of the revised Soledades. This evidence of the poems in Helios makes it necessary to reconsider Machado's esthetics in 1903-04 and his relation to Unamuno at the same period.