Enlightenment: Cultural, Ideological, and Artistic Shifts

The Enlightenment: A Cultural and Ideological Shift

The Enlightenment was a cultural and ideological movement that renewed deep thinking and mentality, particularly after the 18th century. It was defined by a desire to question established authority and emphasized the inductive method (observation and experimentation). This led to a separation of science and theology.

Key Characteristics:

• Rationalism: Knowledge is based on reason, promoting scientific and technical development.
• Utilitarianism: Scientific progress, knowledge, and social reforms should benefit the community.
• Progress: Belief in humanity's potential for indefinite material and spiritual advancement.
• Naturalism: Questioning absolute truths, emphasizing humanism and natural principles.
• Reformist Nature: Ideals should be put into practice through social, economic, and political reforms.

Aesthetically, art was subjected to reason, with distinctions made between lyric, epic, and dramatic forms, as well as between tragedy and comedy. There was also a focus on respecting the unity of place and action.

Poetry

Poetry transitioned from the slow pace of the Baroque to the Enlightenment style, which triumphed in the second half of the century. It featured simplicity, shorter verse structures, and less complex models, drawing inspiration from classical Greek and Roman poets, neoclassical French and Italian works, and Spanish popular tradition. Common themes included praise of the fine arts, scientific and philosophical developments, social reform ideas, friendship, rejection of idleness, ignorance, and superstition, condemnation of vices, and faith in progress and human perfectibility through education. Anacreontic poetry, with its short meters and stanzas, festive and cheerful tone, and celebration of love and sensual pleasures, was characteristic. Late pre-Romantic poetry saw a coexistence of reason and feeling, with a more accented social tone, as seen in the works of Jovellanos and Menéndez Valdés.

Prose

Fictional narrative prose was sparse, with a decline in the novel due to the Inquisition's control and the exhaustion of Baroque narrative models (e.g., Torres Villarroel). Didactic prose was the preferred genre, particularly the essay. Authors sought to critique Baroque ideas and superstitions, spread Enlightenment ideals, and promote social reform. This period also saw the rise of the first newspaper publications, reflecting the growth of a literary public.