José de Cadalso y Vázquez (

Cádiz Cádiz (, , ) is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the Province of Cádiz, one of eight that make up the autonomous community of Andalusia. Cádiz, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Western Europe, ...

, 1741 –

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, 1782),

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, Colonel of the Royal Spanish Army, author, poet, playwright and essayist, one of the canonical producers of

Spanish Enlightenment literature Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

. Before completing his twentieth year, Cadalso had traveled through

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, Germany, England, France and

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, and he had studied the history and literature of these countries. On his return to

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he entered the army and rose to the rank of colonel. Cadalso was the embodiment of the Enlightenment ideal of the "hombre de bien", a learned and well-rounded citizen whose multitude of interests could be utilized to improve society. He was a central figure in the literary landscape of eighteenth-century Spain, especially in the tertulia held at the Fonda de San Sebastián. He influenced a number of Spanish authors, not least among them a young and talented

Juan Meléndez Valdés Juan Meléndez Valdés (11 March 1754 – 24 May 1817) was a Spanish neoclassical poet. Biography He was born at Ribera del Fresno, in what is now the province of Badajoz. Destined by his parents for the priesthood, he graduated in law at Sala ...

. His first published work was a verse tragedy, ''Don Sancho García, Conde de Castilla'' (1771). In 1772, he published his ''Los Eruditos a la Violeta'', a commercially successful prose satire on the obsession with superficial knowledge and the appearance of erudition. In 1773 appeared a volume of miscellaneous poems, ''Ocios de mi juventud''. Cadalso is best known for his ''Cartas marruecas'', an epistolary novel published posthumously by the "Correo de Madrid" in 1789 and as a book in 1793. The ''Cartas marruecas'' have often been compared to

Montesquieu Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (; ; 18 January 168910 February 1755), generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French judge, man of letters, historian, and political philosopher. He is the princi ...

's, (1689–1755), own ''Lettres Persanes'', (

Persian Letters ''Persian Letters'' (french: Lettres persanes) is a literary work, published in 1721, by Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, recounting the experiences of two fictional Persian noblemen, Usbek and Rica, who spend several years in France ...

, 1721), although in reality both works represented the period's fascination with epistolary narrative. ''Cartas Marruecas'' and ''Noches lúgubres'' are often considered his best works, although they are stylistically and thematically different. Whereas ''Cartas marruecas'' is a rational, multi-perspectivistic examination of Spanish society through the eyes of a young Moroccan, ''Noches lúgubres'' ("Lugubrious Nights"), is a short prose work centered on a mourning protagonist's desire to disinter his dead lover, and was published from 1789 to 1790 in the journal ''El correo de Madrid''. The later work was inspired by the death of his close friend, holding amorously her dying body, actress María Ignacia Ibáñez, (1745 – April 1771, aged 26). This work, along with a number of Cadalso's anguished lyrical compositions, are considered an antecedent of

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

in Spain, if not fully Romantic in their own right. An edition of his works appeared at

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, in 3 vols., 1823. This was supplemented by the ''Obras inéditas'' (Paris, 1894) published by R. Foulch-Delbosc. Cadalso was killed at the

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, on 27 February 1782, just 15 days after being promoted to Colonel. He has a tomb in Saint Mary the Crowned Church in San Roque.

References

* * O. N. V. Glendinning. ''Vida y obra de Cadalso". Madrid. Ed. Gredos, (1962), 239 pages. * Sebold, R.P. . ''Colonel Don José Cadalso ''. New York, Twayne Publ. (1971), 187 pages. * Sebold, Russell P. ''Cadalso: El primer romantico "europeo" de Espana''. Madrid: Ed. Gredos, (1974), 294 pages. {{DEFAULTSORT:Cadalso y Vazquez, Jose 1741 births 1782 deaths Enlightenment philosophers Age of Enlightenment Spanish male writers People from Cádiz