El Negro Juan Latino, o cuidado con los maestros de Vicente Rodríguez de Arellano: introducción, edición y notas

Abstract

This work is a critical edition of a short novel published in 1805 by Vicente Rodriguez de Arellano in his collection El Decameron espanol: El negro Juan Latino. This text is of special interest because there are no doubts about its originality, unlike most works in this compilation. This fact allows us to rate its author not only as a translator of foreign pieces, but as an original writer in the Novel genre, which was scarcely developed in the 19th century’s Spain until the decade of 1830. Also, the text is of particular relevance as an early instance of historical narrative well before that genre was introduced by Scott’s influence in Spain. That novel stands out in its adjustment to the sensibility of the beginnings of Spanish 19th century of a certain topic which was taken from Diego Jimenez de Enciso’s baroque play Comedia famosa de Juan Latino. Comparison of this two pieces will reveal that, although Rodriguez de Arellano uses the same character, the same history and the same motifs, he imprints it with a different meaning in the spirit of Rousseau’s philosophy, which would so much influence Romanticism, especially in both education and the most irrational side of the human being.