The Enlightenment and fictional form

Abstract

Critical tradition holds that in Spain, the eighteenth century is one “without novels” in the sense of those produced by realist and naturalist authors; eighteenth-century novels have been characterized as didactic works lacking the stylistic interest and psychological depth of later narrative achievements, or as simply scarce presences in a century which in Europe saw the flourishing of the form. Yet recent scholarship has developed a more nuanced picture of the novel during the eighteenth century in Spain, a century that may no longer be accused of dearth in terms of either production or quality. In scores of original and translated or adapted works, eighteenth-century novelists gave readers access to “what was 'asked' of literature: observation of people, a realistic description of their lives, and a knowledge of their souls based on experience and their relation to society.” Enlightenment fiction was the vehicle not only for moral instruction and lessons concerning virtue, but also for the observation of life and reality. Readers wanted fiction to represent experience as though it were happening before their eyes, and turned to novels for realist elements such as the portrayal of consciousness and the depiction of intense emotions, a key component of the most characteristic of Enlightenment fictional genres: the narrative of sensibility. Authors of fiction experimented with the possibilities of the form in many aspects, such as dialogical modalities and the narration of human experience in time.