The effects of Gongorism lasted long in Spain, which, with its innate propensity to bombast, was more fertile soil for it than other nations. Innumerable poetasters of the early eighteenth century enjoyed fame in their day and some possessed talent; but the obscure and trivial style of the age from which they could not free themselves deprived them of any chance of enduring fame. One may mention, as the least unworthy, Gabriel Álvarez de Toledo (1662-1714) and Eugenio Gerardo Lobo (1679-1750).
Some one has said that the poetry of Spain, with the exception of the romances and the drama of the siglo de oro, has always drawn its inspiration from some other country. Add to the exceptions the medieval epic and the statement would be close to the truth. First Provence through the medium of Galicia; then Italy and with it ancient Rome; and lastly France and England, on more than one occasion, have molded Spanish poetry. The power of the French classical literature, soon dominant in Europe, could not long be stayed by the Pyrenees; and Pope, Thomson and Young were also much admired. Philip V, a Frenchman, did not endeavor to crush the native spirit in his new home, but his influence could not but be felt. He established a Spanish Academy on the model of the French in 1714.
It was some time before the reaction, based on common sense and confined to the intellectuals, could take deep root, and, as was natural, it went too far and condemned much of the siglo de oro entire. The Diario de los literatos, a journal of criticism founded in 1737, and the Poética of Ignacio de Luzán, published in the same year, struck the first powerful blows. Luzán (1702-1754) followed in general the precepts of Boileau, though he was able to praise some of the good points in the Spanish tradition. His own poems are frigid. The Sátira contra los malos escritores de su tiempo (1742) of Jorge Pitillas (pseudonym of José Gerardo de Hervás, d. 1742) was an imitation of Boileau which had great effect. Blas Antonio Nasarre (1689-1751), Agustín Montiano (1697-1765) and Luis José Velázquez (1722-1772) were critics who, unable to compose meritorious plays or verse themselves, cut to pieces the great figures of the preceding age.
Needless to say, the Gallicizers were vigorously opposed, but so poor were the original productions of the defenders of the national manner that their side was necessarily the losing one. Vicente García de la Huerta (1734-1787) was its most vehement partisan, but he is remembered only for a tragedy, Raquel.
Thus it is seen that during a century of social and industrial depression Spain did not produce a poet worthy of the name. The condition of the nation was sensibly bettered under Charles III (reigned 1759-1788) who did what was possible to reorganize the state and curb the stifling domination of the Roman Church and its agents the Jesuits and the Inquisition. The Benedictine Feijóo (1675-1764) labored faithfully to inoculate Spain, far behind the rest of Europe, with an inkling of recent scientific discoveries. And the budding prosperity, however deceitful it proved, was reflected in a more promising literary generation.
Nicolás FERNÁNDEZ DE MORATÍN (1737-1780) followed the French rules in theory and wrote a few mediocre plays in accordance with them; but he showed that at heart he was a good poet and a good Spaniard by his ode Á Pedro Romero, torero insigne, some romances and his famous quintillas, the Fiesta de toros en Madrid. Other followers of the French, in a genre not, strictly speaking, lyric at all, were the two fabulists, Samaniego and Iriarte. F. María de SAMANIEGO (1745-1801) gave to the traditional stock of apologues, as developed by Phaedrus, Lokmân and La Fontaine, a permanent and popular Castilian form. Tomás de IRIARTE (1750-1791), a more irritable personage who spent much time in literary polemics, wrote original fables (Fábulas literarias, 1781) directed not against the foibles of mankind in general, but against the world of writers and scholars.
The best work which was done under the classical French influence, however, is to be found in the writers of the so-called Salamancan school, which was properly not a school at all. The poets who are thus classed together, Cadalso, Diego González, Jovellanos, Forner, Meléndez Valdés, Cienfuegos, Iglesias, were personal friends thrown together in the university or town of Salamanca, but they were not subjected to a uniform literary training and possessed no similarity of style or aim as did the men of the later Sevillan school.
José de CADALSO (1741-1782), a dashing soldier of great personal charm killed at the siege of Gibraltar, is sometimes credited with founding the school of Salamanca. He was a friend of most of the important writers of his time and composed interesting prose satires; his verse (Noches lúgubres, etc.) is not remarkable. FRAY DIEGO GONZÁLEZ (1733-1794) is one of the masters of idiomatic Castilian in the century. He admired Luis de León and imitated him in paraphrases of the Psalms. The volume of his verse is small but unsurpassed in surety of taste and evenness of finish. The Murciélago alevoso has passed into many editions and become a favorite in Spain. The pure and commanding figure of JOVELLANOS (1744-1811) dominated the whole group which listened to his advice with respect. It was not always sure, for he led Diego González and Meléndez Valdés astray by persuading them to attempt philosophical poetry instead of the lighter sort for which they were fitted. He was in fact a greater man than poet, but his satires and Epístola al duque de Veragua are strong and dignified.
Juan MELÉNDEZ VALDÉS (1754-1817) was on the contrary a greater poet than man. Brilliant from the first, he was petted by Cadalso and Jovellanos who strove to develop his talent. In 1780 he won a prize offered by the Academy for an eclogue. In 1784 his comedy Las bodas de Camacho, on a subject suggested by Jovellanos (from an episode in Don Quijote, II, 19-21), won a prize offered by the city of Madrid, but failed on the stage. His first volume of poems was published in 1785; later editions appeared in 1797 and 1820. He attached himself to the French party at the time of the invasion in 1808, incurred great popular odium and died in France. He is the most fluent, imaginative poet of the eighteenth century and is especially successful in the pastoral and anacreontic styles. Fresh descriptions of nature, enchanting pictures of love, form an oasis in an age of studied reasonableness. His language has been criticized for its Gallicisms. José IGLESIAS DE LA CASA (1748-1791), a native of Salamanca and a priest, wrote much light satirical verse, epigrams, parodies and letrillas in racy Castilian; he was less successful in the graver forms. Nicasio ÁLVAREZ DE CIENFUEGOS (1764-1809) passes as a disciple of Meléndez; he was a passionate, uneven writer whose undisciplined thought and habit of coining words lead to obscurity. Politically he opposed the French with unyielding vigor, barely escaped execution at their hands and died in exile. The verse of Cienfuegos prepared the way for Quintana. Differing from him in clarity and polish are Fr. Sánchez Barbero (1764-1819) and Leandro F. de Moratín, the dramatist (1760-1828).
One curious result of rationalistic doctrines was the "prosaism" into which it led many minor versifiers. These poetasters, afraid of overstepping the limits of good sense, tabooed all imagination and described in deliberately prosy lines the most commonplace events. The movement reached its height at the beginning of the reign of Charles IV (1788-1808) and produced such efforts as a poem to the gout, a nature-poem depicting barn-yard sounds, and even Iriarte's La música (1780), in which one may read in carefully constructed silvas the definition of diatonic and chromatic scales.