Don Ramón de la Cruz y sus sainetes: víctimas de la bipolaridad historiográfica dieciochista

Abstract

Through an analysis of the figures of the «petimetres», «payos», «majos», etc. of the eighteenth century, the author questions the polarization to which critics refer when studying the Spanish Enlightenment. We argue that it is the historiography of the XIX century which begins identifying certain types (majos-castizos // petimetres-afrancesados), and consequently the playwrights, with a political ideology; ideology which in turn is revealed by the degree to which authors follow the Neoclassic aesthetics. The manipulation of don Ramon de la Cruz’s sainetes as a patriotic and political tool during and after the Napoleonic invasion of Spain resulted in an unfortunate imaginary division between the «popular» playwrights who represented the national, thus anti-Enlightenment, and the others, the Enlightened, hence anti-National. It is this bi-polar view, applied retro-actively to the Spanish Enlightenment, that we question.