Spanish Enlightenment literature


Spanish Enlightenment literature is the literature of Spain written during the Age of Enlightenment.
During the 18th century a new mentality emerged which swept away the old values of the Baroque era and was given the name the Enlightenment. This movement is based on a critical spirit, on the predominance of reason and experience, philosophy and science being the most valued sources of knowledge. The period is also known as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason. In short, human happiness was pursued by means of culture and progress. Art and literature began to move towards a new classicism. Expressions of feeling were avoided, norms and academic rules were followed, and balance and harmony were valued. By the end of the century, so much rigidity led to a reaction in the form of a return to the world of feelings; this movement is known as Pre-Romanticism.

Historical context

The 18th century began with the War of the Spanish Succession. The European powers, worried about the hegemonic power of the French King Louis XIV, together with his grandson Philip V of Spain, whom Charles II had named heir to the throne, formed the Grand Alliance and endorsed the attempt of Archduke Charles of Austria to accede to the crown. After the Treaty of Utrecht, Philip V was recognized as King of Spain, although he later lost his dominions in Menorca and Gibraltar. In 1724, he abdicated in favor of his son Louis I, but when the latter died months later, he returned to assume the Spanish throne. During his reign, he developed a centralist policy and reorganized the Public Treasury.
After the death of Philip V, Ferdinand VI succeeded him, who, with ministers like Carvajal and the Marquess of Ensenada, improved the country's communications and road network, encouraged naval constructions and favored the development of the sciences.
After the reign of Ferdinand VI, his half-brother Charles III succeeded him on the throne. The prototype of an enlightened monarch, he relied on the support of important ministers, like José Moñino, Pedro Rodríguez, Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea, Jerónimo Grimaldi and Leopoldo de Gregorio. Without leaving the model of the Ancien Régime, he modernized the country, repopulated the Sierra Morena, and favored education, commerce and public works.
During the reign of Charles IV, the French Revolution broke out in 1789. Because of his weakness and the ambition of Minister Godoy, he had to abdicate in favour of his son Ferdinand VII, after the invasion by the French in 1808.

The Enlightenment in Europe

In the last decades of the 17th century, the Ancien Régime, based on the predominance of the ecclesiastical, military and aristocratic classes, entered into crisis in Europe. In this century, Europe critically reviewed the established order. As opposed to previous thought, it proposed reason as the universal method of knowledge, systematic criticism, and promoted the experimental method and studies based on reason itself as the basis of the epistemology that sustained it, as opposed to the argument of authority that sustained thought in previous centuries.
Knowledge moved from courtly gatherings to bourgeois salons, cafés or cultural institutions. The need was felt to travel for study or pleasure, to learn other languages, to practice sports to strengthen the body or to improve the living conditions of the citizens.
In this new attitude, the enlightened person is a philanthropist who cares for others, and proposes and undertakes reforms in aspects related to culture and society. They defend religious tolerance, practice skepticism, and even go so far as to attack religions. In opposition to absolute monarchies, Montesquieu defended the foundations of modern constitutionalism and the separation of the legislative, executive and judicial powers. The enlightened wanted to enjoy freedom and to choose their own rulers. All this inspired the motto of the French Revolution: Freedom, Equality, Fraternity.
The Enlightenment theories had their origin in England, although they reached their peak in France, where they were collected in the Encyclopédie, edited by Jean Le Rond d'Alembert and Denis Diderot. In this work, they gathered all the existing knowledge of their time, in alphabetical order.

The Enlightenment in Spain

Antecedents of reformism: the of the 18th century

During the Habsburg period, Spain practically abandoned scientific studies, which were seen with suspicion and continuously persecuted by the Inquisition. The delay with regard to Europe was evident at the beginning of the 18th century. Nevertheless, some intellectuals since the end of the 17th century refused to abandon their research; not without risk, they were always up-to-date on European discoveries in astronomy, medicine, mathematics or botany. These scholars are the so-called novatores. They spread the theories of Galileo Galilei, Kepler, Linnaeus and Isaac Newton. Among the novatores,,, Juan Caramuel,, and stand out. In the 18th century, the legacy they left was continued by other scientists like Jorge Juan, Cosme Bueno, and Antonio de Ulloa.

Adoption of the Enlightenment in Spain

After the War of Succession, the Bourbons considered Spain a nation submerged in misery and ignorance. The Iberian Peninsula barely had seven and a half million inhabitants. With a French political conception, Philip V fortified the monarchic power and promoted a process of centralization in the nation, abolishing the fueros and laws of Aragón and Catalonia. The Church maintained its dominance, although some religious orders like the Jesuits fell by the time of Charles III. On the other hand, the common people, made up of ranchers, crop farmers, civil servants and the marginalized, lacked rights. The monarchs gradually reduced some privileges of the hereditary aristocracy and adopted a regalist or critical position towards the church, with the intent of carrying out a series of basic reforms. At the end of century, the quality of life of the Spanish people had been improved, as demonstrated by the increase in population of almost three million inhabitants, a figure which is nevertheless smaller than that of other European countries.
Image:Estatutos rae 1715big.jpg|thumb|right|Cover of the first edition of Foundation and statutes of the Royal Spanish Academy
Enlightenment ideas entered Spain through various channels:
  • The diffusion of the ideas of some Enlightenment scholars, including Gregorio Mayans and Benito Jerónimo Feijoo, novatores of the 18th century.
  • The propagation of French encyclopedist ideas, in spite of the censorship of the time to avoid their introduction in the Peninsula and the vigilance of the Inquisition.
  • The translation of French books of all genres and the hiring of foreign professors or scholars in certain subjects.
  • Scholars and intellectuals' academic trips and knowledge of European life and customs.
  • The appearance of newspapers or publications where enlightenment ideas were disseminated.
  • The creation of a series of cultural institutions and economic societies of friends of the country aimed at promoting the cultural, social and economic progress of Spain through the reform of traditional practices. The first of these societies was founded in the Basque Country in 1765, and soon spread throughout the nation. They were made up of enlightened people from the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie and the clergy. In this century organizations of great importance were created, such as the Royal Spanish Academy, founded for the benefit of the language, under the motto "it purifies, fixes and shines". The society aimed to establish norms for the correct use of language, and its first effort was devoted to the Diccionario de la lengua española, known then as the Diccionario de Autoridades, in six volumes. The etymology of each word can be found in it, and each meaning is accompanied by a brief quotation from a famous writer that proves its existence and illustrates its use. Other institutions that emerged at the time were the Biblioteca Nacional de España, the Real Academia de la Historia, the Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid, the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, the Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres de Barcelona and the Museo del Prado.
The high point of the Enlightenment in Spain occurred during the reign of Charles III and its decline, around the time of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic invasion of the Iberian Peninsula. The reformers, in spite of counting on the support of the Crown, did not obtain the recognition of the privileged groups; many were described as pro-French and accused of attacking Spanish traditions and religious education. After the French Revolution, some were persecuted and even imprisoned.

Spanish in the 18th century

In this century, a struggle was waged in favor of clarity and naturalness of artistic language, in which many writers fought against the remnants of the Baroque style that still survived – that is to say, the use of artifice to which the late Baroque had come.
Latin was used in the universities as an academic language, but it was gradually replaced in that role. Spaniards wanted to return to the splendor of the Golden Age as a literary language, but for that it was necessary to develop forms of expression in accordance with the European experimental sciences, a task which was carried out by Feijoo, Sarmiento, Mayans, Jovellanos, Forner, and Capmany, among others. In 1813, after the War of Independence, the Board created by the Regency to carry out a general reform of education ordered the exclusive use of the Spanish in the university.
Many of the enlightened people, for the modernization of Spain, defended the introduction of the teaching of other languages in the centers, and the translation of outstanding works into Castilian. The former was opposed by those who defended the priority of the classic languages over modern languages, and the latter by those who rejected translations because they would introduce unnecessary foreign words into the Spanish language and would endanger its identity. Two positions thus arose: casticismo, which defended a pure language, without mixing vocabulary or strange turns of phrase, with words documented in the Authorities ; and purismo, which was entirely opposed to the penetration of neologisms, mainly foreign ones, accusing its opponents of defiling the language.