Demófilo
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Antonio Machado Álvarez, better known by his pseudonym Demófilo (
Santiago de Compostela Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city has its origin in the shrine of Saint James the Great, now the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, as the destination of the Way of S ...
, 1848 –
Seville Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...
, 4 February 1893), was a writer, anthropologist, and Spanish folklorist. He was the son of the noted Spanish folklorist, Cipriana Álvarez Durán.


Biography

His mother, Cipriana Álvarez, was the niece of the writer Agustín Durán, author of a collection of Spanish narrative ballads (''romanzas'') of the 19th century. His father, Antonio Machado, was a university professor of Natural Sciences at the
University of Seville The University of Seville (''Universidad de Sevilla'') is a university in Seville, Spain. Founded under the name of ''Colegio Santa María de Jesús'' in 1505, it has a present student body of over 69.200, and is one of the top-ranked universi ...
. Machado spent a large part of his life in Seville, where he studied philosophy and justice. His teacher, Federico de Castro, instilled in him an interest in
evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
and the philosophical ideas of
Karl Christian Friedrich Krause Karl Christian Friedrich Krause (; 6 May 1781 – 27 September 1832) was a German philosopher whose doctrines became known as Krausism. Krausism, when considered in its totality as a complete, stand-alone philosophical system, had only a small f ...
; later he became inclined toward the utilitarist social philosophy of
Herbert Spencer Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher, psychologist, biologist, anthropologist, and sociologist famous for his hypothesis of social Darwinism. Spencer originated the expression " survival of the fi ...
. He temporarily occupied the chair of Metaphysics at the University of Seville and held office as a magistrate. He was appointed professor of Folklore at the Free Institution of Education in Madrid. He also participated actively in the ''Monthly Magazine of Philosophy, Literature and Sciences'' (1869-1874), with his first works on popular literature. Driven by economic necessity, he travelled to
Ponce, Puerto Rico Ponce (, , , ) is both a city and a municipality on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. The city is the seat of the municipal government. Ponce, Puerto Rico's most populated city outside the San Juan metropolitan area, was founded on 12 August 1 ...
in 1892 where he held the position of Recorder of Property, although he was already in very poor health. He died on his return to Spain, on 4 February 1893, when he was only forty-seven years old. He and Ana Ruiz had five children, among whom were poets Manuel and Antonio Machado.


Career

From its creation in 1871, he belonged to the Sevillian Anthropological Society, along with his father and founder of this institution, Antonio Machado. Under the pseudonym Federico de Castro, he published ''Popular stories, legends and customs'' in 1872. His interest in folklore helped shape the magazine ''La Enciclopedia (The Encyclopedia)'' (1877), published decennially, and in whose pages he created a permanent section on popular literature. As a result of the creation of the first society of folklore in London in 1878, he conceived the idea of creating something similar in Spain. On 3 November 1881, he published ''Founding of the Organization for Spanish Folklore'', "a society for the compilation and study of popular knowledge and tradition". Thus the society ''El Folclore Andaluz'' (''The Folklore of Andalusia'') came into being, with the creation of regional and local societies based on the linguistic, geographic, and cultural peculiarities of the different regions of Spain. He established a monthly magazine of the same name in 1882, which was renamed ''El Folclore Bético-extremeño''. It is still in print in several facsimile editions. Machado had a modern conception of the new science folklore. He knew English, and translated some works of the anthropological discipline, such as one by
Edward Burnett Tylor Sir Edward Burnett Tylor (2 October 18322 January 1917) was an English anthropologist, and professor of anthropology. Tylor's ideas typify 19th-century cultural evolutionism. In his works ''Primitive Culture'' (1871) and ''Anthropology'' (1 ...
. Machado ventured his own definition of the discipline: :''This is, for me, the science that intends to study of undifferentiated or anonymous humanity, to start off from an age that can be considered infantile to the present time.'' In Madrid, he directed production of a collection of books of and about folklore, the ''Library of Popular Traditions'' (1883-1888), that eventually reached eleven volumes. He published a collection of enigmas and riddles, and studied the
flamenco Flamenco (), in its strictest sense, is an art form based on the various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain, developed within the gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia, and also having historical presence in Extremadura and ...
. His collection of flamenco songs was first anthology of this poetic expression. He translated from English the works of William George Black (''Folk Medicine: A Chapter in the History of Culture'' adrid: Editorial Progreso, 1888; the classic Edward B. Tylor work ''Anthropology; or Introduction to the Study of Man and Civilization'' (Madrid: The Publishing Progress, 1887; and from the French, the second edition of the ''Research on the History and Literature of Spain during the Middle Ages'' by
Reinhart Dozy Reinhart Pieter Anne Dozy (Leiden, Netherlands, 21 February 1820 – Leiden, 29 April 1883) was a Dutch scholar of French (Huguenot) origin, who was born in Leiden. He was an Orientalist scholar of Arabic language, history and literature. Biogra ...
(Seville: Administration of the scientist-literary Library and Madrid: Bookstore of D. Victoriano Suárez, 1872, two vols). He maintained a very active correspondence with
Hugo Schuchardt Hugo Ernst Mario Schuchardt (4 February 1842, Gotha (Thuringia) – 21 April 1927, Graz ( Styria)) was an eminent German linguist, best known for his work in the Romance languages, the Basque language, and in mixed languages, including pidgins, ...
,
Teófilo Braga Joaquim Teófilo Fernandes Braga (; 24 February 1843 – 28 January 1924) was a Portuguese writer, playwright, politician and the leader of the Republican Provisional Government after the overthrow of King Manuel II, as well as the second elect ...
, and
Manuel Murguía Manuel Antonio Martínez Murguía (17 May 1833 – 2 February 1923) was a Galician journalist and historian who created the Real Academia Galega. He was one of the main figures in Galician ''Rexurdimento'' movement. He is also remembered as R ...
.


Works

* ''Obras Completas'', ed. Enrique Baltanás, Sevilla, Biblioteca de Autores Sevillanos, 2005, 3 vols. * ''Biblioteca de las Tradiciones Populares Españolas'', Sevilla: Francisco Álvarez y Cª, 1883-1886 (Madrid: Est. Tip. de Ricardo Fé) 1882 a 1888, once vols. Contiene: t. I: Introducción / Antonio Machado Álvarez. Fiestas y costumbres andaluzas / Montoto y Rautenstrauch. Cuentos populares / Antonio Machado Álvarez. II: El folk-Lore de Madrid / por Eugenio de Olavarria y Huarte. Juegos infantiles de Extremadura / recogidos y anotados por Sergio Hernández de Soto. De los maleficios y los demonios / de Juan Nyder, trad. del latín por J. Mª Montoto y Vigil. III: El mito del basilisco / Guichot. Continuación de los juegos infantiles de Extremadura / Sergio Hernández de Soto. De los maleficios y los demonios. IV: Folk-Lore gallego / E. Pardo Bazán y otros escritores de Galicia. Conclusión de los maleficios y continuación de fiestas y costumbres andaluzas. V: Estudios sobre literatura popular, primera parte / Antonio Machado Álvarez. VI: Apuntes para un mapa topográfico -tradicional de la villa de Burgillos perteneciente a la provincia de Badajoz / por Matías R. Martínez. Tradiciones de Extremadura / C.A.D. VII: Cancionero popular gallego y en particular de la provincia de La Coruña: tomo I / José Pérez Ballesteros. VIII. A rosa na vida dos povos / Cecilia Schmidt Branco. Folk-lore de Proaza / L. Giner Arivan. IX: Cancionero popular gallego y en particular de la provincia de La Coruña: tomo II / José Pérez Ballesteros. X. Cuentos populares de Extremadura / recogidos y anotados por Sergio Hernández de Soto. XI: Cancionero popular gallego y en particular de la provincia de La Coruña: tomo III / José Pérez Ballesteros. A partir del t. II el ed. pasa a ser Alejandro Guichot y Compañía. Posteriormente, desde el t. VII la colección es editada en Madrid en la Librería de Fernando Fé. * "El folclore del niño", en ''España'', 1885–1886, tomos CV-CI * ''Colección de cantes flamencos'', 1881; muy reimpreso, por ejemplo como ''Cantes flamencos recogidos y anotados'' M., Ediciones Cultura Hispánica, 1975. * ''Colección de enigmas y adivinanzas'', 1833. * ''Estudios sobre la literatura popular'', (tomo V de la biblioteca de Tradiciones Populares") Sevilla: Alejandro Guichot y Compañía, 1884. * ''Batallas del libre pensamiento'', 1885. * ''Artículos varios'', 1904, volumen I de sus ''Obras completas''. * Under the pseudonym "Federico de Castro", ''Cuentos, leyendas y costumbres populares'', (1872) * ''Adivinanzas francesas y españolas'' Sevilla, 1881 (Imp. de El Mercantil Sevillano)


Notes


References

* Daniel Pineda Novo, ''Antonio Machado y Álvarez. Vida y obra del primer flamencólogo español''. Madrid: Ed. Cinterco y Fundación Andaluza de Flamenco, 1991 * ''Cartas a Schuchardt. La correspondencia inédita de los folkloristas y otros intelectuales españoles con el romanista y lingüista Hugo Schuchardt''. Sevilla: Fundación Machado, 1996.  * Enrique Baltanás, ''Los Machado. Una familia, dos siglos de cultura española'', Madrid: Fundación José Manuel Lara, 2006.


External links

*
Portal consagrado a Antonio Machado Álvarez, Demófilo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Demofilo Spanish male writers People from Santiago de Compostela 1848 births 1893 deaths