Spanish Enlightenment Literature - Lyric

Lyric

In 1737, Ignacio Luzán gathered the aesthetic ideas of the Neoclasicism in his Poética. This style prevailed in Spain imposing criteria of utility and service to the humanity, next to desires of aesthetic pleasure. The artistic ideals imported from France and the "good taste" and the courtesy dominated, while feelings and passions were repressed. The subjection to the norms was general, fleeing from the spontaneity and the imagination, which were replaced by the didactic eagerness.

The neoclassical poetry treated historical, customary and satirical subjects. In the variant denominated "Rococó", more luxurious and recharged, the pastoral themes that raised the pleasure and the gallant love dominated. Habitual forms were odes, epistles, "elegías" and romances.

Important names of the Spanish poetry are Juan Meléndez Valdés, the maximum Spanish representative of the Rococó, Nicolás Fernandez de Moratín and the story-tellers Tomás de Iriarte and Félix María Samaniego.

The neoclassical literature was developed mainly in three cities: Salamanca, by people related to its University; Seville, with the influence of its assistant (position similar to mayor) Pablo de Olavide; and Madrid, around its boarding house of San Sebastián. This way, the writers of that tendency are grouped in schools or poetic groups: The Salmantine school, in which Cadalso, Meléndez Valdés, Jovellanos and Forner are found; the Sevillian school, in which the writers Manuel María Arjona, José Marchena, José María Blanco and Alberto Lista are included, who soon evolved towards a starting Romanticism (Preromanticism); and the Madrilenian group, formed by Vicente García de la Huerta, Ramón de la Cruz, Iriarte, Samaniego and both Fernández de Moratín.