18th-Century European Enlightenment and Reform in Spain
European Enlightenment and its Influence on 18th-Century Spain
Rationalism and Criticism in Europe
European culture in the eighteenth century, often called the Century of Enlightenment, is characterized by several key features:
- Predominance of reason over other sources of knowledge, such as myth and tradition.
- Subjection to criticism of any belief or tradition.
- Organization of life based on human progress and happiness.
- Gradual separation of civil and ecclesiastical power.
- Replacement of a stratified society with a more flexible bourgeois system that recognizes human rights and equal opportunities.
Perhaps the concept most linked to the Enlightenment is that of reformism. The Enlightenment spread primarily through Europe from France, where the Encyclopédie, led by Diderot and d’Alembert, was published between 1751 and 1782. It disseminated radical ideas of the Enlightenment, many of which conflicted with traditional Christianity.
Reformist Thought in Spain
In the last third of the seventeenth century, Spain’s decline reached a sharp degree. During these years, the intellectual movement of the reformers developed. Their ideas spread through social gatherings held in the homes of nobles, under whose protection participants were shielded from possible attacks from others in society.
The first reforms were made during the reign of Philip V (1700-1746). His son Ferdinand VI continued them, and they reached their peak with Charles III (1759-1788). Charles III arrived in Spain with extensive government experience (he had been King of Naples) and an intense educational reform agenda. This gave great impetus to Enlightenment projects: the promotion of agriculture, industry, and trade development; regulation of education; momentum in journalism; and the transformation of academies and salons into economic and cultural societies. All this is called enlightened despotism, with the famous motto: “Everything for the people, but without the people.” The ruling classes were the planners, with the support of the Kings.
One of the leading representatives of reformism was the Benedictine monk Father Benito Feijoo. Through his works and letters, such as Universal Critical Theater, he presented critical scholarly issues of all kinds: philosophy, theology, art, mathematics, etc., advocating and encouraging all scientific knowledge through experimentalism, the application of reason, and the reporting of false beliefs and superstitions.
The ideas of the Enlightenment came to fruition, and many projects were developed in the reigns of Philip V, Ferdinand VI, and Charles III. However, they were hampered by the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789. From that moment, reformist and traditionalist positions became more clear-cut, leading to serious clashes during the nineteenth century. During the eighteenth century, one of the most important means of planning, dissemination, and implementation of enlightened despotism was the institutions erected and supported by the crown: the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), the National Library, the Academies of Fine Arts and History of San Fernando, the Economic Societies of Friends of the Country, and the Institute sponsored by Jovellanos in Gijón.
Ideology, Aesthetics, and a New Concept of Art and Literature
The era sought perfect harmony between nature and man. Reason was responsible for discovering and maintaining that relationship. Thus, only what was natural and found in the light of reason deserved to be cultivated. Neoclassicism reflects this. However, in the last third of the century, Pre-Romanticism emerged, which claimed the predominance of sentiment over reason.
Neoclassicism
The neoclassical movement tried to retrieve classical precepts. It applied a precise implementation of the rules of literary perception. Literature had a utilitarian purpose, used to disseminate political and philosophical ideas through criticism, aiming for progress.
Features:
- Theater: Adoption of the rules of three unities, separation between tragedy and comedy, and the exclusion of anything fantastic.
- Poetry: Use of pastoral themes, Anacreontic poems, exaltation of nature and ideas, never the intimacy and feeling of the poet.
Pre-Romanticism
Emerged in the first decades of the eighteenth century.
Features:
- Did not renounce the ideas of Enlightenment and reformism but affirmed the predominance of sentiment over reason and the right of the writer to express their privacy.
- Questioned the inflexibility of the rules.
- Initiated a love of unleashed nature and mysterious night scenes, ghosts, death, and tombs.
The Essay
The essay is the literary genre that allowed writers to present and defend the ideas and attitudes of the Enlightenment. It is a written dissertation, made to be read, with a highly variable didactic intent, themes, and style.
Features:
- Presentation of a topic that the author has considered. The subject matter can be from very different disciplines.
- The author uses different views or approaches, often original, to spark the reader’s interest.
- Use of resources and argumentative techniques.
It originated with Michel de Montaigne (French), who wrote Essais in the seventeenth century.
Jovellanos
Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos was born in Gijón in 1744. He was educated in Oviedo and at the universities of Ávila and Alcalá de Henares, where he studied philosophy and law. In 1767, he met Campomanes, who proposed that he become Mayor of Crime in Seville, thus beginning his career as a clerk and master. He developed an intense intellectual, civic, and political life very early and was elected to cultural institutions such as the Royal Academy of History.
The revolutionary events, the rise of Charles IV, and the French Revolution distanced him from the court. He went to live in Gijón in a kind of disguised exile. He lived there for seven years, studying the province of Asturias and its situation and promoting improvements. His illustrated work had great success with the creation of the Asturian Institute of Navigation and Mineralogy. Jovellanos’s written production is extensive, but his strictly literary output is limited.
Jovellanos never married and was a person of high moral rectitude. He was one of the great polymaths of his time, devoting his entire life to carrying out reform projects. After living in Gijón, he was named Minister of Justice in Russia. He was arrested in Gijón and taken to León, where he was captured and confined in Mallorca. Upon his release in 1808, he returned to Asturias and was near Navia when invited to join the Bonapartist government in León.