Spanish literature: The Eighteenth Century

In the 18th cent. French neoclassicism exerted a powerful—and inhibiting—influence on Spanish literature. The Poética of Ignacio de Luzán reflected the academic principles of the epoch. An important essayist was Benito Gerónimo Feyjóo y Montenegro, a Benedictine who helped to usher the Enlightenment into Spain.

Three authors stood out as notable exceptions in the midst of a general decline in literary creativity: Leandro Fernández de Moratín, a writer of plays in the neoclassic vein; Ramón de la Cruz, author of popular playlets called sainetes; and the poet Juan Meléndez Valdés. While Manuel Quintana's patriotic verse was neoclassical in form, it anticipated romanticism in its emotion.

• Introduction
• Iberian Literature before Spanish
• Early Works in Castilian Spanish
• The Renaissance and the Golden Age of Spanish Literature
• The Eighteenth Century
• The Nineteenth Century and Romanticism
• Late-Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century Movements
• The Spanish Civil War to the Present
• Bibliography

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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