Azul...

The poems and stories that make up the book were, in large part, written by Rubén Darío during his stay in Chile, in which he stayed between 1886 and 1889. All of the texts had appeared previously in the Chilean press, between December 7, 1886, the date in which "El pájaro azul," or "The Blue Bird" appeared, and June 23, 1888, when "Palomas blancas" or "White Doves" was published.

In modernism, the color blue and the white swan were the symbols of the movement. In its first edition, the work began with a prologue by Darío's Chilean friend Eduardo de la Barra, with an epigraph by Victor Hugo, a poet highly admired by Darío, that said "L'art c'est l'azur." In a note on the second edition of the book, in 1890, the author explained that this excerpt distoria de mis libros (1913), negated this relation. According to the explanation in this work, the color blue was for "el color del ensueño, el color del arte, un color helénico y homérico, color oceánico y firmamental," translated to "the color of a dream, of art, a Hellenic and Homeric color, an oceanic and firmament color."

In its first 1888 edition, the book was divided into the following parts:

• "Cuentos en prosa," which includes the stories "El Rey burgués," "La Ninfa," "El fardo," "El velo de la reina Mab," "La canción del oro," "El rubí," "El palacio del sol," "El pájaro azul," and "Palomas blancas y garzas morenas."
• "En Chile," with two texts in prose: "Álbum porteño" and "Álbum santiagués."
• "El año lírico," with four poems dedicated to the four seasons: "Primaveral," "festival,"otoñal," and "Invernal."
• Two uncollected poems: "Pensamiento de otoño" and "Anagke."

In the stories, Darío frequently inserts themes and motifs related to Greek mythology and fairy tales. Characters such as Mab, queen of the fairies, or Puck, the sprite in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. In spite of a predominate dreamy atmosphere, the story "El Relato," which relates the death of a young port worker, stands out for its aesthetic approach to naturalism. Denunciations of social injustice are not alien to this story: it is also present in the story "La canción del oro," in which a poor Bohemian poet sings a bitter hymn to gold, functioning as an example of money through metonymy.

One of the most important themes of the stories included in Azul... is reflection, often bitter, about the condition of the artist within a bourgeois society. The best example is "El Rey Burgués," ironically subtitled "Cuento alegre," in which the protagonist, a poet, is condemned by the king named in the title to crank the handlebar of a music box without stopping. Critics have commented on the large extent this reflects the author's own dislocation among the Chilean plutocracy.

At first, the publication of the work did not have much impact, outside of some review within the Chilean press. However, in October of 1888, the Spanish novelist Juan Valera, whose opinion was very respected among intellectuals in Spain and Latin America, published two letters in the Madrid newspaper El Imparcial, in which he praised Rubén Darío, because despite a strong influence of French literature, he had managed to distill a personality of his own.