Tag Archives: eighteenth century

José Iglesias de la Casa (1749-1791), a Problematic Pastoral and Satirical Poet, Friday 8 March 2024 – Seminar write-up

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This post is part of our Research Initiation Scheme for 2023-2024.

On Friday 8th March, Noelia López-Souto (Universidad de La Laguna, Tenerife) delivered a seminar on her research into Salamancan poet José Iglesias de la Casa, focusing on his life and poetry in 18th century Spain.

Noelia López-Souto (photo by Modern Languages CDRG)

To begin her presentation, Dr López-Souto presented us with a portrait of José Iglesias de la Casa, and highlighted how elements included in this portrait represented his life as a priest and poet. However, his dual role of priest and poet posed a problem, as there was sometimes a tension between his religious life and the content of his poetry including, for example, his use of satire. Writing in the 18th century, at a time which fell between the Golden Age and Romantic period of literature, his work is part of the School of Salamanca, an important Spanish literary group with a new poetry influenced not only by the European Rococo movement but also by traditional Spanish poetry and classical models.

Dr López-Souto highlighted how many of his works were subject to posthumous editing, leading to the modification of controversial sections of the original texts, and their division into volumes to facilitate publishing. Despite this, his Poesías Póstumas (1793) were widely successful, and were included in various collections of classical Spanish poetry. However, these works were later silenced and removed from these publications. Dr López-Souto then explained how she has released a new manuscript with poems by Iglesias. Her research aims to recover the poet’s lost works and make them more widely available.

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Echoes of 18th-Century Spanish Literature in the British Romantic Press, 4 December 2020 – Seminar write-up

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This post is part of our Research Initiation Scheme for 2020-2021.

The final seminar talk of the Semester 1 Modern Languages Core Disciplinary Research Group series took place on Friday 4th December. The seminar, ‘Echoes of 18th-century Spanish literature in the British Romantic Press’, was presented by Dr Leticia Villamediana (Hispanic Studies, University of Warwick).  

Dr Villamediana began by contextualising her research, explaining that it is part of a larger project with universities in the UK and Spain. The project, ‘Hispanic Literature in the British Romantic Periodical Press: Appropriating and Rewriting the Canon’, aims to build a map of British Hispanism in the Romantic period by exploring Hispanic literature featured in the British periodical press between 1802 and 1832. Reviews of Spanish literature in British periodicals helped to broaden readers’ knowledge of foreign culture and played a role in shaping public opinion. 

British interest in Spanish history, culture and literature emerged only in the beginning of the 19th century, the cause of this being the Peninsular War. In the eyes of Great Britain, Spanish literature had previously been regarded as backward and the antithesis of Enlightenment ideals. However, during the Romantic era, reviews of Spanish literature and other foreign works began to appear more prominently in British periodical publications, such as Richard Phillip’s The Monthly Magazine. Periodicals such as these aimed to show the progression of the liberal arts in different countries and published a list of Spanish works and authors. Over time, the section increased, showing the growing interest in the field. The press gave a positive review of Spain and praised its literary progress. Robert Southey, a leading Hispanist of the Romantic period, was a notable contributor to these periodicals. He translated many Spanish Romance texts, wrote a History of the Peninsular War, and was responsible for the publication of a new section on Spanish poetry in The Monthly Magazine.

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