Antonio Machado (1875-1939) was one of Spain's most original and renowned twentieth-century poets. In this volume, Nicolás Fernández-Medina focuses on Machado's folkloric "Proverbios y cantares," a collection of short, proverbial poems that he wrote between 1909 and 1937. Through close examination of the poems, Fernández-Medina shows Machado's great debt to earlier writers and thinkers, such as Plato, Kant, Schlegel, and Unamuno.