3.1: The Enlightenment (18th century)

 

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The 18th century is also known as the “Century of Enlightenment”. The development of capitalism, based on industry but also on colonialism, led to radical changes in political structures, such as the French, American and Haitian revolutions. Accordingly, Enlightenment thinking (also called “The Enlightenment”) rejected aristocratic privileges based on family names and promoted equal rights before the law, privileged reason over traditional beliefs, and trusted that research, science and industrial development would produce happier societies.

, via Wikimedia Commons" class="right"> The development of the steam engine marked a milestone for industrial development.

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The Rise of Capitalism, the Enlightenment, and Neoclassicism

“Is there anything more tiring than the company of those who don't appreciate a man for what he is, but for what his grandparents were?” —José Cadalso (1741-1782), in Moroccan Letters, 34 (1789).

Could there be a more tiresome thing than being in the company of those who don't appreciate a man for what he is, but for what their forefathers were?

axis: axis banking: banking profit : profit was being made: it was becoming pump: steam pump : steam raw materials: raw materials indebted: in debt stockist: wholesaler taste: taste

Mercantilism from the 15th to the 17th centuries had changed the economic axis of much of Western Europe. The economy based on land and agricultural production (feudalism) was transformed into a system dominated by commercial expansion (mercantilism), which already in the 18th century can be clearly called capitalism. The development of banking and industry are the indicators of this new system. In a consumerist and profit spirit, it was a priority to generate greater and faster means of production with technical advances such as the mining pump and the steam engine. There was also competition for the mass and efficient transport of raw materials to offer new and more sophisticated products to societies that were always interested in consuming more. The engine of the new economic system was the bourgeoisie —the merchants who lived in the “burgos” or cities—which became a very prominent class. Many bankers, for example, could influence highly indebted monarchies and nobles. Urban growth was also notable, encouraging the enrichment of occupations such as stockists, artisans, doctors, lawyers, journalists and court employees, who could afford luxury clothes, cuisine, theater and books, among other things, and thus influence collective tastes.

give rise to: to result in professor: scholar       mid-century: mid-century welfare: welfare Enlightenment, Enlightenment, Age of Enlightenment: Enlightenment. to become fashionable: to become fashionable

The political system that developed in conjunction with mercantilism was the centralized monarchy, which eliminated excess borders between small fiefdoms, facilitated trade, and favored imperial projects around the world. These monarchies gave rise to complex national states that needed an increasing rationalization of their institutions, promoting the relevance of the professional middle class (lawyers, professors, state employees). But in the 18th century, the hierarchical authoritarianism of these monarchies was more an obstacle than an advantage for the bourgeois classes, who sought a more direct influence in the control of the State. In this spirit, the revolutions of England (1688), the United States (1786) and France (1789) occurred, which sought to give political power to “ordinary” citizens, economically dominated by merchants and industrialists. This is how democracy was reinvented in the name of capitalist values: economic freedom (to trade), political equality (to undo aristocratic hierarchies), social fraternity (circles of political and economic support). In the field of ideas, the mercantile economy favored scientific experimentation and humanism, gradually supplanting hierarchical and theocentric ideology by empirical observation and rationalist logic. By the middle of the 18th century, bourgeois liberalism was the vanguard of Western thought with three basic beliefs: 1) reason was a “light” capable of solving all the problems of life; 2) the government must take responsibility for the well-being of its people; and 3) the individual had the right to educate himself and to defend himself from political, religious and ideological authoritarianism. These were the postulates of the Enlightenment, whose most famous exponents were from the two economic-military powers of the time: Great Britain (John Locke, David Hume, Adam Smith) and France (René Descartes, Charles de Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, François de Voltaire). In fact, French is becoming fashionable and owning the French language becomes a sign of high culture.

milestone: milestone       lay: secular, lay included: even go to: to turn to source: source               sanity: sanity rudeness: rudeness measured: moderate, restrained

A milestone in the influence of the Enlightenment was the publication of the first Encyclopedia in France, between 1751 and 1765, designed as an instrument to educate society and thus ensure the end of the Old Regime, arguing that monarchical absolutism was based on the ignorance of the people to dominate it. Thus, the European intelligentsia developed a system of ideas that made bourgeois power convenient and logical, and aristocratic power unjust and impractical. The lights of reason would make the world (centered on Europe) “progress”, removing it from the superstition, irrationality and tyranny attributed to the so-called “Dark Ages”, that is, the feudal and aristocratic era. In several senses, then, it can be said that the Enlightenment of the 18th century constitutes the hegemonic consolidation of what had begun with the Renaissance of the 15th century. The bourgeoisie, which was a rising minority class in the Renaissance, became the politically and ideologically ruling class in the 18th century. Faith is transferred from God to man (anthropocentrism), and progress gives meaning to life: what is modern is better than what is traditional. A secular and even anti-clerical culture (secularization) is favored. Reason and rigorous observation (rationalism and empiricism) are the basis of truth and of what is credible for purposes useful to social improvement. The philosophy of utilitarianism and pragmatism is developed, under the formula of obtaining “the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people” (Epicurus). We are looking for principles and knowledge that are applicable always and everywhere (universalism, encyclopedism). Greco-Roman sources are used as the basis for scientific, philosophical, legal and political thought (classicism). It believes in democracy, freedom, equality and fraternity (liberalism). In Western arts, one manifestation of the Enlightenment is neoclassicism. If the Renaissance, in order to oppose feudal theocentric aesthetics, claimed the humanist heritage of the Greek and Roman classics, the Enlightenment revalued the restraint and balance of this classical heritage to oppose the excess of the Baroque, associated with aristocratic ostentation. Instead, they seek harmony, balance and symmetry. Everything that is disproportionate and exaggerated is considered monstrous in neoclassical aesthetics. The arts in general must have a useful purpose, which can be didactic (teaching), moral (to purify passions) or social (satire of bad habits, to correct them). That's why fables, essays, satires come into fashion. The theater seeks to build customs with comedy and to cleanse the soul of passions with tragedy. Originality is considered a defect, and it is estimated that masterpieces can be achieved with rational formulas, imitating Greco-Roman models in architecture, sculpture, painting and literature. Academicism prevails and creativity must be subject to clear rules. Theater and narrative, for example, must return to the three units established by Aristotle: of action, place and time; the French add the unity of style. “Good taste” (bourgeois) requires rejecting the vulgar and the exaggerated: the arts must represent a stylized, idealized reality, in which elegance is as important as sanity. The language does not admit rudeness, it must be friendly, measured, clear.

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Baroque vs. Neoclassical aesthetics

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Fuentes

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• Alonso, E. et al. Goya and the Spirit of Enlightenment. Boston: Little Brown, 1989.
• Blanco Aguinaga, Carlos, et al. Social history of Spanish literature. Akal, 2000.
• Davies, Catherine, ed. The Companion to Hispanic Studies. Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Garcia de Cortázar, Fernando and José Manuel González Vesga. A brief history of Spain. Editorial Alliance, 2017.
• Glendinning, N. A Literary History of Spain: The Eighteenth Century. London: Berrn; New York: Barnes & Noble, 1972.
• Kattan Ibarra, Juan. Cultural perspectives of Spain. NTC Publishing, 1990.
• Polt, J. H. R. 18th Century Poetry. 4th edn, Madrid: Castalia, 1994.