From "rhetoric and poetic" to "literature": educational context, subjects and textbooks in the 19th century

Abstract

In the turbulent nineteenth century a shift in rhetoric and poetic production manifests in literature, that is, the rigid application of rules to science communication of ideas which develop in a canon of national character. This conceptual renewal arises in light of progressive developments and their liberal ideologies, which settle in the reign of Isabel II and encourage reforms in curricula. I will show in this present article the educational policy context in which these transformations are developed together with aspects that refer to the subjects that concern us. I will review the concepts of rhetoric and poetic production as science in the textbooks of that period of time and, finally, I will deal with the connections and established symbiosis between them up to the formation of literature as a theory that is finding its independence and relevance.