The Eighteenth Century and the invention of the human nature (Moratín on the labyrinth of the lights)

Abstract

An analysis of the philosophical and moral basis of the theatrical reform raised by authors such as Jovellanos or Moratín, regarding to the developments in contemporary European thought on literary theory and theater is performed in this work. We analyze the transformations of broad involvement in dramatic conception as a political element of social control but also as a strategy for moral education of the people, from an eminently bourgeois point of view in
opposition and contrast to the parameters of the strong Spanish dramatic baroque tradition. That is, the theater as a social product and the reform of Moratín as a mirror of social changes and the economic and the political rise of a new bourgeoisie.