Ramón de la Cruz (28 March 1731 – 5 March 1794) was a Spanish neoclassical

dramatist A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between characters and is intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. Ben Jonson coined the term "playwri ...

. Born in

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, he was a clerk in the ministry of finance. He is the author of nearly 400 ''

sainete A sainete (farce or titbit) was a popular Spanish comic opera piece, a one-act dramatic vignette, with music. It was often placed at the end of entertainments, or between other types of performance. It was vernacular in style, and used scenes of lo ...

s'', little farcical sketches of city life, written to be played between the acts of a longer play. He published a selection in ten volumes (Madrid, 1786–1791). The best of his pieces, such as ''Las Tertulias de Madrid'', are specimens of satiric observation. Historians acknowledge that his writings provide a vivid window into the life of late 18th century Madrid, including satirizing the customs of the different classes of the city.

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* 1731 births 1794 deaths Writers from Madrid Spanish dramatists and playwrights Spanish male dramatists and playwrights Clerks Spanish opera librettists 18th-century Spanish writers 18th-century Spanish dramatists and playwrights 18th-century Spanish male writers {{Spain-dramatist-stub