3 Philip Deacon, “Precision historica y estetica teatral en el siglo XVIII espan˜ol.” In Ideas

En sus paisajes. Homenaje al Profesor Russell P. Sebold. Ed. Guillermo Carnero et al.

(Alicante: Universidad de Alicante, 1999), pp. 141-150.

4 Russell P. Sebold, El rapto de la mente. Poetica y poesia dieciochescas (Barcelona: Anthro-

Pos, 1989), pp. 98-128.

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Features of the conceptista and culterano styles as he condemned wordplay (agudezas), extravagant metaphors, and neologistic, erudite terminology. Luzan’s main stylistic models were classical Roman ones and he commended for imitation the sound effects of Latin verse.

Drama occupied Book 3 of La Poetica, augmented by two extra chapters in the posthumous 1789 edition. Luzan set out the classical model of the division of styles: tragedy for serious matters of national concern involving great individuals, and comedy the domain of the domestic, with the unities prescribed for both. Unity of action was deemed indispensable; unity of time might require great ingenuity, but Luzan expected the action to parallel stage time, though in practice the real events might take a little over four hours; unity of place might, if necessary, be stretched to portraying different levels of one basic area. Following Aristotle, plots should have a beginning, middle, and end, and be characterized by changes of fortune and reversals. Tragic events from history were thought particularly effective for dramatization since audiences might know them, however slightly. Countering the dominant mode of the Spanish comedia, Luzan echoed Horace in proscribing the low style for tragic action, and recommended a small cast. In the 1789 additions Luzan extended his reservations about Spanish popular drama. His main criticism was that instead of improving conduct it had been detrimental, condoning by its portrayal behavior contrary to public standards. Another major objection concerned the frequent disregard for verisimilitude, as when two characters echoed what each other said. Luzan’s most vehement attacks, however, concerned overblown language, repeating his earlier condemnation of the conceptista and culterano styles.

Although La Poetica became a benchmark in subsequent decades, the most significant objections on publication came from Juan de Iriarte (1702-1771), in Spain’s pioneering Diario de los literatos de Espana (“The Spanish Review of Books”). An extensive summary of Luzan’s text, supplemented by praise and approval, was rounded off by reservations in which Iriarte defended the classical origins of tragicomedy, argued in defense of some of Gongora’s metaphors, and expressed disagreement as to the alleged intentions of Lope de Vega’s Arte nuevo de bacer come-dias (“New Art of Writing Comedies”). Nevertheless the precis of La Poetica acquainted a wider readership with Luzan’s ideas, in spite of the journal’s limited circulation. The objections prompted him to publish a pseudonymous defense (Discurso apologetico [“Apology”]), reiterating his preference for a simple poetic style, free of extravagant metaphors, affectation, and pomposity. He rejected Gongora’s extreme obscurity, subtlety, and ingenuity, and restated his earlier criticism of tragicomedy.

A member of Luzan’s literary coterie, Agust´ın de Montiano y Luyando (1697-1764), advanced the case for Neoclassical tragedy in 1750 in his

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Discurso sobre las tragedias espanolas (“Discourse on Spanish Tragedy”) accompanied by an example, Virginia; the volume was supplemented in 1753 by further historical argument and another tragedy observing the classical conventions, Ataulfo, set in medieval Spain. A protege of Montiano, Luis J. Velazquez (1722-1772), promoted Neoclassical aesthetic criteria in his Origenes de la poesia castellana (“Origins of Spanish Poetry,” 1754), providing an overview of Spanish verse including the then still manuscript Libro de buen amor as well as living authors. Velazquez put into circulation the term “Golden Age” for the classicizing era of Garcilaso, Luis de Leon, and the Argensolas, condemning conceptismo and culteranismo as elitist deviations from true purity of style.

In the 1760s, the leading essay-periodical, ElPensador (“The Thinker”), devoted eighteen of its eighty-six numbers, wholly or in part, to dramatic matters. Pensamiento ill contained an ironic conversation between Spaniards and foreigners in which the latter claimed comedias should observe the unities as contributing to theatrical illusion and promoting reason and good taste. The Spaniards replied that the unities suggested a lack of imagination and creativeness, and that the limited number of characters in foreign plays was similarly a sign of impoverishment. Later articles were more expository and less ambiguous. Pensamiento ix set out the Aristotelian norms, principally on the moral character of tragedy and comedy, while Pensamiento xx criticized Spanish plays for mixing the comic with the sublime, and for encouraging vice. Pen-samientos XXVI-XXVII underlined the ethical function of drama, the need for verisimilitude in the action, the indispensability of the unities, and the elevation of tragedy. More controversially Pensamientos XLII-XLIII questioned whether autos sacramentales were drama, advocating their banning. The final essays on literary theory were equally classicizing: Pensamientos LVIII-LIX humorously attacked the poetic obsession with puns and double meanings, while Pensamientos LXIX-LXXI criticized the treatment of love in Moreto’s No puede ser (“It Can’t Be”).

• In drama it was the dominance of the supposedly hybrid form of tragicomedy, endorsed…

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 18 Eighteenth-century Neoclassicism PHILIP DEACON The appeal to classicizing aesthetic principles which characterized the reformist tendency of high culture in eighteenth-century Spain is best understood as a reaction to the dominant literary mode inherited from the previous century.1 In drama, poetry, and prose writing the

• A second strand comprises historical ballads…

Popular poetry Popular poetry, however, suffered no crisis or decline. Though often marginalized from high cultural debate, popular poetry was constantly criticized and denigrated, despite flourishing throughout the century in its chapbook format. “Literatura de cordel,” literally “literature on a string,” was so called because it was exhibited at street vendors’

• Among his more important works are the magic comedies…

A younger contemporary, Jose´ de Can˜izares, contributed more substantially to the renewal of the theatre, not only as dramatist but also as official censor of plays. Among his more important works are the magic comedies Don Juan de Espina, El anillo de Giges (“Giges’ Ring”), Marta la Romarantina, and Juana

• Morat´ın emphatically Cambridge…

Concurrently with El Pensador, two plays by Nicolas Fernandez de Morat´ın (1737-1780), the comedy La petimetra (“The Fashionable Lady,” 1762) and tragedy Lucrecia (176-}), contained prologues advocating Neoclassical principles. The “Disertacion” preceding La Petimetra claimed that poetics is based on reason, and that the purpose of poetry was the Horatian

• As in the earlier comedies there is a love…

However, it was in El si de las nihas (“A Girl’s Consent”), written in 1801 but not premiered until 1806, that Morat´ın provided the best formulation of the issues which concerned him most deeply: the upbringing of the young, relations between parents and children, and free choice in Cambridge Histories Online