"la princesa está triste
                                                                               qué tendrá la princesa?"

The Patter Familias of Modernist poetry, in fact, he coined the term. Darío's early work was Romantic in essence; his later oeuvre is cloaked with various innovative elements. He was influenced by French poets, namely the Parnasians Gautier and Leconte de Lisle. It is believed that Modernist poetry reflected that idea of the poet retiring from the nasty world to take refuge in the ivory tower. There the poet is concerned himself with form and not content, with style and not social themes. The images that jump up from Daríos' work, however, are not purely aesthetic, as many people believe, since they reflect an ideology which resembles the Orientalist vision addressed by Said. Unfortunately, due to politics and myopic criticism, Darío's work has not been approached from a critical point. Azul (1888), still with same Romantic traits was his first collection of poems; a most mature and truly modernist is seen in Prosas Profanas (1896). His preferred images are mainly classical, mythological and oriental  projected with a pleasing sensuality and a devotion to rimes and musicality.