Leandro Fernández de Moratín

Leandro Fernández de Moratín ( born March 10, 1760 Madrid, † June 2, 1828 in Paris ) was a Spanish poet and playwright.

Life

Leandro Fernández de Moratín was born as the son of the Spanish poet and drama writer Nicolás Fernández de Moratín, which is why he is often referred to as " Moratín the Younger ". His mother's name was Isidora Cabo Conde. At age four, he contracted smallpox. Since his father was against university studies, he was first watchmaker.

He was a protégé of Manuel de Godoy, and took after the occupation of Spain by the troops of Napoleon Bonaparte as a so -called " Afrancesado " party for his brother Joseph Bonaparte, who ascended the Spanish throne after forced abdication of the Bourbons. As a reward, he was appointed " Bibliotecario Mayor" ( Chief Librarian ), giving him some trouble earned after the expulsion of the French, so he moved to Barcelona and the last years of his life in Bordeaux and Paris spent, where he died.

Work

Leandro Fernández de Moratín was the greatest playwright of the 18th century in Spain and fought for the renewal of the theater in Spain. He wrote in the style of neoclassicism.

Moratín translated works of Molière as Le médecin malgré lui ( The Doctor in spite of himself ) or L' école des maris ( The School for Husbands ) and also produced the first prose translation of Shakespeare's Hamlet in into Spanish.

Less known is his role as a theater historian: His posthumously published history of the origins of Spanish theater Origen del teatro español ( 1830-31 ) was one of the first serious studies of the Spanish Theatre before Lope de Vega.

Dramas

Moratín sees the theater as a moral institution for the dissemination of bourgeois values; the focus of his dramas is the middle class with their problems as Dating and family and education, especially those of women. It is found nothing unusual or fantastic, which he with his tendency can be distinguished from the foothills of the late Baroque theater to the unlikely acts. Moderation and balance in the moral and probability are its basic principles. The author is opposed to extremes such as old men who are married to a very young girl, against unreasonable passion, avarice, envy, frivolity, etc. It should, he says, are made vices and errors of society in the pillory. Similar to Molière his characters incarnations of generalizable types.

• El viejo y la niña: ( The old man and the girl ) Comedy, premiered on May 22, 1790, basic theme is the Altersdiskrepanz between spouses as well as the woman's free choice for a life partner
• La comedia nueva ( The New Comedy ) Theatre satire in prose, premiered on February 7, 1792 at the Teatro Príncipe is the topic of a supposedly " new comedy " by Eleuterio Crispín de Andorra, El gran de Viena cerco ( The great siege of Vienna ), whose premiere leads to disaster. As the scene acts Coffee Shop, in Spain in the 18th century was still a new phenomenon; Model was Goldoni's comedy La bottega del caffè. At the same time the work is a perfect realization of the classic standards such as the Aristotelian units is: The entire action takes place in a single room of the café and the performance lasts for exactly the same length as the " elapsed time ".
• . El sí de las niñas ( The vows of girls): Comedy, 1805 Again, it 's about the age difference in the relationship between man and woman as well as the free choice of the "young girl " in mate choice; his day a great success.
• El barón 1787 designed as zarzuela, rewritten and later in 1803 at the Teatro de la Cruz premiered as a comedy.
• La mojigata: Written in 1791, premiered on May 19, 1804 at the Teatro de la Cruz
• La derrota de los pedantes

Poetry

• In: Obras y dramáticas LIRICAS 1825, Vol III: 109 poems

Werkausgaben

• El sí de las niñas. La comedia nueva. Edited by René Andioc. Madrid: Espasa, 2001.
• POESIAS completas ( POESIAS sueltas y otros poemas ), Edited by Jesús Pérez Magallon. Barcelona: Sirmio, 1995.