Menosprecio de corte y alabanza de aldea en la novela de finales del siglo XVIII

Abstract

This article focuses on the re-using of the «menosprecio de corte y alabanza de aldea» in five Spanish novels published at the end of the XVIII th century; El Mirtilo o los pastores trashumantes, Eusebio, Eudoxia, by Pedro Montengón, El Valdemaro by Vicente Martínez Colomer and La Serafina by José Mor de Fuentes. We shall insist on the ability the genre has to revitalize a stereotype that stems from classical literature to integrate it into the structure and make it part of the narrative process. The genre is also used as a way to express a set of moral themes, which it was by tradition, but its content had been renewed. Besides, the vision on the country introduced by these novels through the use of stereotypes is influenced by the economic topics of the time, sometimes such topics are inserted in the text in the most surprising way. The work that was published last, La Serafina by Mor de Fuentes, is a step towards modern narrations in that it establishes the autonomy of the novel as regards the rules imposed by classicism on all writings together with the fact that it led to the creation of novels whose referent is no longer literary but actual.