The Power of Paradox in the Work of Spanish Poet Antonio Machado (1875-1939)

This study focuses on a key figure in the Spanish literature of the previous one. Written in English, the monograph offers a substantial reassessment of the ideas of Antonio Machado. There can be little doubt that what in a general sense may be termed paradox is a powerful constituent in Antonio Machado's makeup. Until now, however, it has not been the subject of a systematic study. This book fills this gap. Paradox is a very slippery term, with connotations that vary from the vague to the precise and from the positive to the pejorative. Without going into detailed definitions, Dr Philip G Johnston sensibly treats paradox from two different angles. On the one hand, he interprets it 'as meaning intellectual (and temperamental) conflict and contradiction' and, on the other, he views it as a 'figure of speech, a rhetorical device, used for critical purposes, and encompassing concepts such as irony and incongruity' (1). This is a sound, practical approach that enables him to draw maximum implications from the subject. The ambiguity that surrounds the term paradox gives rise to a problem he has to face immediately. It is that one of Machado's first statements, made in 1903, on his philo