THE PATHS OF DREAMS. A REREADING OF ANTONIO MACHADO’S GALLERIES

Poetic creation and encounter with God are two concepts that the Spanish poet Antonio Machado relates to dreams and childhood. He thus recovers the dream as a sphere of contact with God, overcoming in a certain way the faith/reason dialectic that modernity takes pleasure in emphasising. The dream is beyond reason, and there comes the divine inspiration which can then be translated into “a few true words”. Poetic language thus acquires a status far superior to that of delight: it is the key that allows us to touch the mystery. The relationship between dream and childhood also allows Machado to explore a lost innocence to which one always aspires to return.