marzo 9, 2024

Nicolás fernández de moratín

Epigram: knowing without studying. nicolás fernández de moratín

Moratín Sr. (to differentiate him from his son, the writer Leandro Fernández de Moratín) was the son of an important person in the Court (the one in charge of preserving the queen’s jewels), so he was able to receive a good education. He studied in La Granja (Segovia) and in Calatayud (Zaragoza), and then finished his law degree in Valladolid. He was a very cultured man who, in addition to this knowledge that requires great intellectual effort, had many other popular hobbies (such as theater, hunting and bullfighting). He always knew how to combine his more serious occupations (for example, his work as a professor of literature at the prestigious Imperial College of Madrid) with these other more frivolous hobbies, to which he gave great dignity by dealing with them in his literary work.
For a long time, Moratín Sr. animated the cultural life of Madrid. He founded one of the most important gatherings among writers in the mid-18th century (the Fonda de San Sebastián gathering); he premiered plays that were widely applauded; and he wrote extensively in the newspapers of the time. He founded the newspaper El Poeta, and from its pages he defended some fundamental ideas of the neoclassical current (such as, for example, that science and reason should enrich art).

Leandro fernández de moratin (biography and works)

It seems that Nicolás Fernández de Moratín collaborated with his father in the service to the Queen (in 1747 Diego Fernández de Moratín requested for him a position as «repostero de camas» and perhaps he was the help of the guardajoyas).
Around that time Ramón de la Cruz introduces a character in his sainete La visita del hospital del mundo (1763), in which the figure of Nicolás has been seen; it is about Ingenio, a hungry, crazy poet who believes himself superior to many others.
From 1777 he was a member «of merit» of the Real Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País de Madrid, founded in 1775; he achieved this by presenting himself at the annual call for prizes in Agriculture under the name of Rafael Fernández; he obtained only fourth place, with a memoir (Dissertación. Cuáles son los medios de fomentar la Agricultura, sin perjuicio de la cría de ganado), which was published in 1780, after the death of its author. He collaborated in commissions, prepared reports, censures, and presented various speeches at the meetings of the Royal Society. For this one he wrote compositions on the prizes given to students in 1777, 1778 and 1779; against the one of 1777 he wrote precisely Tomás Iriarte the mentioned Vejamen, which cooled his relations somewhat.

Nicolás fernández de moratín – bullfighting in madrid

He studied at the Jesuit school in Calatayud and later at the University of Valladolid. He practiced law in Madrid. He was a member of the Fonda de San Sebastián gathering, which was also attended by José Cadalso, Tomás de Iriarte and Ignacio López de Ayala.
Founder of the Fonda de San Sebastián gathering where he met with Cadalso, the Iriarte family and Ignacio López de Ayala, he only allowed himself to talk about «theater, bullfighting, love and verses». Author of the poem La Diana o el arte de la caza, Las naves de Cortés destruidas 1765, Arte de las putas 1898.

Spanish p-10 m-26.nicolás fernández de moratín y leandro

Apart from Leandro Fernández de Moratín, its most egregious representative, other eighteenth-century authors cultivated neoclassical comedy.  Thus, Nicolás Fernández de Moratín published La petimetra in 1762. It is a comedy of cloak and dagger, a hybrid of Baroque comedy and French comedy, which describes a feminine type, that of the conceited woman. El delincuente honrado (written in 1773), by Melchor Gaspar de Jovellanos, is a thesis work on challenges. It can be considered a melodrama or lachrymose comedy, a type of theater with abundant tragic and sentimental elements.
The names to remember are those of Agustín Montiano y Luyando, Juan José López Sedano, Nicolás Fernández de Moratín, Cándido María Trigueros, Ignacio López de Ayala or Vicente García de la Huerta. Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, José Cadalso, Nicasio Álvarez Cienfuegos or Manuel José Quintana also cultivated tragedy on occasion.
Defenders of the Baroque aesthetics were Vicente García de la Huerta, Juan Cristóbal Romea y Tapia and Jesuit Father Pedro Estala. Of the neoclassical, Agustín Montiano y Luyando, Blas Antonio Nasarre, Luis José Velázquez, Nicolás Fernández de Moratín and his son Leandro Fernández de Moratín, José Clavijo y Fajardo and Francisco Mariano Nifo.