Literary Movements and Key Authors of the Enlightenment Era

The Enlightenment: Ideological Foundations

The Enlightenment marked a profound shift in thought, characterized by the rejection of superstitious knowledge and the adoption of a critical spirit, reason, and experience. Its core ideological features include:

• Rejection of Superstition: A move away from unproven beliefs toward empirical evidence.
• Primacy of Rational Thought: The belief that everything can be demonstrated through observation and experimentation.
• Tolerance: Emphasis on tolerance in religion and thought.
• Thirst for Knowledge: The enlightened individual seeks comprehensive understanding.
• Encyclopedic Knowledge: Interest in all branches of knowledge, especially the sciences.
• Human Rights and Obligations: Recognition that all human beings possess equal rights and duties.

Enlightened Despotism

This political philosophy is summarized by the phrase: “Everything for the people, but without the people.” The goal was to educate the populace and improve living conditions through top-down reform.

Neoclassical Prose: Essay and Criticism

Neoclassical prose served a primarily didactic purpose. Literature was written not to entertain, but to educate, criticize, and moralize. The essay and critique were the primary vehicles for this expression.

In this period, scholarship was valued above the author's creativity, and writers cultivated an accessible language, free from unnecessary ornamentation.

Key Neoclassical Authors

Benito Jerónimo Feijoo

Feijoo believed that the dissemination of culture was essential for the progress of society, which suffered greatly from the problem of ignorance. He was a great essayist. His most important works include Universal Theater Critic and Erudite and Curious Letters.

José Cadalso

An intelligent and highly educated man, Cadalso was often prone to pessimism. He wrote Moroccan Letters, which consists of 90 fictional letters exchanged between characters. These letters served as a vehicle to criticize the economic policy and social life of the time.

Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos

A recognized intellectual, Jovellanos’s work had a strong didactic purpose and political content. His economic reports, such as the Report on the Agrarian Law and the Report on the Settlement of Police for Parallel Performances, stand out for their detailed analysis and reform proposals.

Romantic Prose: The Birth of Journalism

The Romantic era saw attempts to revive the genre of the novel, alongside the powerful emergence of journalism. Newspapers became accessible to a larger audience, serving as a crucial medium for the diffusion of ideas, news, and criticism. They also helped disseminate the work of contemporary thinkers.

Mariano José de Larra: The Social Critic

Larra collaborated with several magazines and newspapers, famously using the pseudonym Fígaro. As a true Romantic, he was a great critic of society, often expressing dissatisfaction with the realities of life. He was an ironic observer, an acerbic critic, and a strong advocate for social reforms. His journalistic articles are among the best known of the period.

Neoclassical Theater: Rules and Failure

Despite attempts by authors to renew the theater, works that maintained the themes of the Baroque period continued to be performed. The effort to create a strictly Neoclassical theater aimed to recover the rule of the three units (time, place, and action) and maintain a moral and didactic purpose, but this attempt was largely unsuccessful.

Leandro Fernández de Moratín

Moratín was a dramatic Neoclassical author. His most famous comedy, The Maiden's Consent (El sí de las niñas), is a sharp criticism of arranged marriages, which were common in his time.