Modernismo
The Modernismo poetry movement began in Latin America in the late 1800s and spread to Spain in the first decades of the 20th century. Modernismo poetry includes elements of French symbolism, classical Spanish poetry, and was influenced by American poets like Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman. Poets of Modernismo, such as, Rubén Darío, Leopoldo Lugones, and Ricardo Jaimes Freyre, often set their poems in exotic landscapes inhabited with swans, lilies, princesses, and other symbols of nobility. These symbols of beauty were meant to emphasize the materialism of everyday life. Although the movement was largely over by 1920, it continued to influence Spanish and Latin American poets throughout the rest of the 20th century. Click the button below to read the English translation as well as the original Spanish version of Antonio Machado's Last Night As I Was Sleeping.
Poem Analysis
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In Antonio Machado's poem, Last Night As I Was Sleeping, four vivid dreams in which the speaker "dreamt-marvelous-error." The first stanza reveals the first dream, "I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a spring was breaking out in my heart." In this dream the spring brings a new life to the speaker. In the second stanza, the beehive builds on the speaker's old mistakes; "And the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures." The third dream brings the speaker comfort and understanding in the form of the fiery warmth of the sun, "that a fiery sun was giving light inside my heart." In the fourth and final stanza the speaker acquires security and strength in mind because he comes to the realization it is God in his/her heart. In each of these stanzas the line "I dreamt-marvelous error-" is repeated. This repetition suggest that every time the speaker had one of these dreams he/she always mistook them for reality. Therefore, the speaker's use of the words "marvelous error" was used to assert the fact that all the occurrences in his/her dreams could never really happen. That is why each dream is a wonderful illusion, they allow the speaker to experience joys he/she will never encounter in real life.
that a spring was breaking out in my heart." In this dream the spring brings a new life to the speaker. In the second stanza, the beehive builds on the speaker's old mistakes; "And the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures." The third dream brings the speaker comfort and understanding in the form of the fiery warmth of the sun, "that a fiery sun was giving light inside my heart." In the fourth and final stanza the speaker acquires security and strength in mind because he comes to the realization it is God in his/her heart. In each of these stanzas the line "I dreamt-marvelous error-" is repeated. This repetition suggest that every time the speaker had one of these dreams he/she always mistook them for reality. Therefore, the speaker's use of the words "marvelous error" was used to assert the fact that all the occurrences in his/her dreams could never really happen. That is why each dream is a wonderful illusion, they allow the speaker to experience joys he/she will never encounter in real life.
Literary Devices
- Throughout his poem Manchado uses a refrain. In each stanza the line "I dreamt-marvelous error-" is repeated. This line tells the reader that each time the speaker sleeps he mistakes one of his wonderful allusions for reality. Why, the line is repeated in every stanza of the poem maybe to emphasize the fact that for the speaker these dreams may never come true but they allow him to enjoy a different life.
- The literary device caesura is used in the refrain "I dreamt-marvelous error-." This line is a caesura because the dash lines create a sort of fracture in the line. The use of a caesura in the refrain is meant to accentuate the fact that although the speaker knows he/she is sleeping he/she always manages to mistake the dream for reality.