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Why did the Spanish Enlightenment movement fail?
Why do I care about this question?
The Spanish Enlightenment was probably the closest thing you could find in Spain to the EA/rationality movements in the 18th century. I'm interested in seeing why it failed, and whether any lessons can be carried over.
Did the Enlightenment fail in Spain?
Yes.
Cause 1: The French. The movement played politics, and lost.
The French, under Napoleon, invaded Spain. The Enlightenment movement aligned itself with French revolution ideals and values, whereas the folk hated the invasion. Rationalists took positions of power in the new administration, for which they were perceived as traitors. After the French were defeated, most of the Spanish elite went into exile by royal decree (not only those who had worked with the French, also those who had received offers to!). In general, rationalists and their ideas were perceived as foreign to Spain. To a certain degree, because they were.
Cause 2: Lack of organizational power?
This seems to not have been the case. "Sociedades de amigos del pais" ~ " societies of friends of the country" seemed to be abundant. Several institutions which remain until this day were created:
Real Academia Española (1713), Biblioteca Nacional (1712), la Real Academia de la Historia (1738), el Real Jardín Botánico (1755), Museo del Prado (1819).
In English:
The Royal Academy of Spain (entrusted with the Spanish Language), the Royal Academy of History, the Royal Botanic Gardens, the Prado Museum (among the top 10 museums in the world).
Cause 3: Their works were not popular
Example: Cartas marruecas - Letters from Morocco. A Spanish Noble and his Moroccan Noble friend talk about stuff pertaining Spain. While insightful and interesting for me, I do not believe that they were interesting for a majority of Spaniards.
Example: Moratin, Spanish playwright, wrote 5 comedies. Consider his most popular comedy El sí de las niñas
- Pro: Wildly popular Was watched by 37 000 people, 25% of the population of Madrid at the time.
- Pro: The plot is about the right to choose; a 16 year old girl confronts an arranged marriage with a 59 old man. It may have had an effect on arranged marriages?
Counterexample: Ramón de la Cruz. Started as rationalist, but couldn't make enough money. Turned to seducing the public instead, became wildly acclaimed and wrote more than 300 theater pieces in a genre which people liked but which wasn't particularly Enlightened.
- Note: This is a ~100x factor over the previous author.
Como autor dramático,escribió únicamente cinco comedias que le procuraron una gran reputación entre la gente ilustrada. En El viejo y la niña y en El sí de las niñas (1805), defiende el derecho que tiene la mujer de aceptar o no a su cónyuge contra la imposición de la familia, pues era frecuente casar a jovencitas con viejos adinerados. En La mojigata critica la hipocresía y la falsa piedad. Otra comedia es El barón y por último La comedia nueva o El café (1792), una burla hacia los autores que ignoran las reglas aristotélicas.
El sainetero Ramón de la Cruz (Madrid, 1731-1794) fue uno de los autores más aplaudidos por el público y más criticado por los neoclásicos (aunque algunos de ellos, ante el apoyo popular de sus obras, se retractó). Comenzó escribiendo tragedias de corte neoclásico, rechazando el teatro "desarreglado" que prefería la gente. Sin embargo, sus necesidades económicas le hicieron acercarse a géneros menos ilustrados pero más aclamados por el público y los actores. De esta manera empezó a escribir zarzuelas de temática española y, a la vez, sainetes. De estos últimos escribió más de cuatrocientos, generalmente en versos octosílabos, y algunos en endecasílabos. Los personajes de este subgénero teatral son populares (manolas, majos, maridos burlados, albañiles, castañeras, hidalgos arruinados, etc.) y la acción suele desarrollarse en Madrid: La pradera de San Isidro, El Prado por la tarde, El Rastro por la mañana; su final, a veces quiere ser ejemplarizante. El más famoso de los sainetes es Manolo, sátira del teatro que escribían sus enemigos neoclásicos. Con su máxima "yo escribo y la verdad me dicta", pudo encontrar en el pueblo una fuente inagotable, la misma que, con mayor profundidad, inspiraría a Francisco de Goya.
Didactic prose. Permanent damage done. Inoculated against "didactic prose". Damage done:
Cause 4: Lack of political power. The Case of the Agricultural Report.
Uno de sus escritos más difundidos, incluso internacionalmente, fue el Informe en el expediente de la Ley Agraria (1795), que redactó en nombre de la Real Sociedad Económica Matritense de Amigos del País, desde la perspectiva del liberalismo económico, en la línea de Adam Smith (que había publicado La riqueza de las naciones en 1776).
Cause 5: Clash against religion. The Spanish Inquisition.
The Spanish Inquisition generally made life hard for people who had observations to make against religion, tradition, etc. The Catholic Church had the first Encyclopedia (by D'Alambert and Diderot) in their list of banned books in 1759.
Example: A Spanish writer, Félix María Samaniego