Moratín is the most important playwright of the Spanish neoclassical school. In all of his comedies, he tries to delight the audience while instructing them in moral values, with the development of an action that plausibly mimics reality.  He does not write tragedies, despite the fact that this genre enjoyed great vogue in European Neoclassicism due to his character not prone to extremes. In his comedies he paints individuals as they are, imitating existing national customs,  showing common vices and errors and incidents of domestic life, form a credible perspective, meticulously observing the neoclassical strict rules of unity of action, place, and time. As a playwright, he embodied an aesthetic of a pure artist and carried it to perfection in the scenes.

He cultivates two kinds of poetry, the satirical and the lyrical. His satirical poetry introduces a critic against the vices in the Spanish society, contemplating with pain how far his homeland has moved away from the progress of what he considers more educated nations. An example of this kind of poetry that stands out defending neoclassical ideas. is La derrota de los pedantes,  a fierce attack against the last defenders of the Baroque style. As a lyrical poet, he demonstrates a taste for moderation, giving little to the displaying of feelings, building verses with true and deep emotional content without ever breaking the marbled neoclassical coldness. He definitely applies his literary skills to the effort to improve society, by censuring bad habits and ignorance. The author continues to interest critics today as a very unique human figure, whose remarkable humanity is patent in his numerous letters and in his private diary.  

El viejo y la niña

La comedia nueva

El sí de las niñas

El barón

La mojigata

Dona Francisca, a young girl of sixteen, who has just left the convent in which she was brought up, is going to marry Don Diego, a fifty-nine-year-old gentleman. The marriage was arranged by the groom and doña Irene, mother of the bride, without counting on the young woman's opinion at all. For her part, the girl is in love with young Don Carlos, Don Diego's nephew. Coerced by the environment and education, both young people do not dare to proclaim their mutual love and disobey their elders. Don Diego, by chance, discovers the truth and renounces his matrimonial claims, allowing the two lovers to marry, since he understands that the marriage between a young woman and an old man is not reasonable or in line with the laws of nature.

Social criticism

Theater play

During the 16th century, the medieval vision of the world enters into crisis. The Renaissance was defined by a substantial and absolute division between Nature and Spirituality. The world of the senses and the world of the spirit was intimately fused in the man of the Middle Ages, to the point that there was one and the same thing. The Renaissance, with its radical individualism, signified a revolutionary change of position that separated the human being from the omniscient spirituality of the Middle Ages. The Renaissance proclaimed that the Middle Age was only a dark period between Antiquity and its time. In this sense, the Renaissance is not a mere cultural period, but a new conception of life that manifests itself in aspects such as politics and science, as well as literature. There is a conscious search for a language full of natural elegance, with a predominance of the novel in different types, chivalry, pastoral, Moorish, and the picaresque among the most popular ones.

During the Renaissance, an enormous effort was made to clearly delimit the world of the individual, separated from the spiritual realm. The independence of the human being was proclaimed on the basis that God and man are two incommunicable entities.  Following Calvin's thought, the creature could not influence the behavior nor the inscrutable decisions of the Creator, the first one predestined from birth.  It was the task of the Spanish theologians at the Council of Trent who fought such a doctrine, proclaiming an intimate connection between God and man. The consequences of Trento were incalculable for the world of culture in Spain, the country exempt from heresy by the council but its cultural future was also determined by it. As the sixteenth century progressed towards its end, the natural and the supernatural world tended to draw closer together for the Spaniards, with the scientific pursuit, and the mere intent of rational thinking viewed with deep suspicion.

Notwithstanding, there is also in Spain an advance in science and discoveries are made, accompanied by a development of urban life and incipient capitalism. The reign of the Catholic Monarchs and later during the  Empire there was a development of humanism, man becoming the center of the universe, with the courtier as the ideal Renaissance man, and a renewed interest in the study of the authors of Antiquity.  The discovery of the printing press in Europe triggered movements of reform, propitiating in Spain a response with the development of particular religious literature known as mysticism. 

Neoclassicism

Teatro Crítico I, by Benito J. Feijoo

Diccionario de Autoridades of Real Academia 

Orígenes de la lengua española, by Gregorio Mayans

Poética, by Ignacio de Luzán

Vida, by Diego de Torres Villarroel

Fray Gerundio de Campazas, by José Francisco de Isla

La petimetra, by Nicolás Fernández de Moratín

El delincuente honrado, by Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos

Fábulas morales, Félix M. Samaniego

Fábulas literarias, by Tomás de Iriarte

Poesías, by Juan Meléndez Valdés

Cartas marruecas, by José de Cadalso

La comedia nueva, by Leandro Fernández Moratín

Informe sobre la ley agraria, by Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos

Exequias de la lengua castellana, by Juan Pablo Former

Los caprichos, by Francisco de Goya

Publicaion of Diario de los literatos de españa (7 volumes)

Publication of El pensador, by José Clavijo.

Publication of El censor, by Luís García del Cañuelo

Foundation of the Real Academia de la Lengua

First edition of the Diccionario de Autoridades

Publication of the Tratado de ortografía

Foundation of the Real Academia de la Historia

Foundation of the Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona

Foundation of the Academia Real de Bellas Artes de San Fernando

Publication of Viaje de España, by Antonio Ponz

Phoibition of representation in theater of "autos sacrementales" (religious plays).

Foundation of Sociedad Vascongada de Amigos del País.

Auto de Curiel: For fear of the rulers to the influence of foreign ideas, the judicial order prohibits the import of books written in Spanish and published abroad.

Edition of the first French encyclopedia. Diderot's work, although widely criticized, can be considered the first modern encyclopedia.

Samuel Johnson publishes the Dictionary of the English language, with uses, customs and definitions of the words that make up the English language. Includes terms that appear in Shakespeare and other great authors of British literature.

Publication of Candide, by Voltaire. Candide is living a sheltered but indoctirinated life.

Harmonia Mundi, by Kepler

Night thoughts, by Edward Young

Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding

Diccionary of the English Language, by Samuel Johnson

Candide, by Voltaire

On Education, by Rousseau

The 5th Symphony, by Ludwig van Beethoven. 

Critique of Pure Reason, by Enmanuel Kant

Don Giovanni, by W. A. Mozart

Lyrical Ballads, by W. Wordsworth and S. Coleridge

Concordat of Rome: The Spanish Monarchy demands to extend to all its domains the Royal Patronage granted by the Pope in the time of the Catholic Monarchs, which granted the monarchs the right to appoint bishops and provide ecclesiastical benefits to certain territories.

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"El sí de las niñas" (1805)

By Leandro Fernández Moratín

Time Period: Neoclassicism

Genre: Social criticism, Theater play

Spanish Bites

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