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Tomás de Iriarte y el Neoclasicismo | Fábulas, salseos literarios y el Siglo de las Luces 📜🔥 — Transcript

by María Pareja Olcina · 2,877 words · 529 segments · language es · Watch on YouTube

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0:00Uh, let's imagine for a moment one of
0:02the most rigid men, I mean, meticulous
0:05and obsessed with the rules of all 18
0:07th-century Spain.
0:09A true bureaucrat of perfect meter.
0:12Exactly. A spotless courtier who, well,
0:14dedicated his entire life to dictating
0:17what was correct and what was not in
0:19art. And now let's picture that same
0:21man being dragged before the fearsome
0:23tribunal of the Inquisition.
0:25My goodness, what a dramatic turn.
0:27Yes, yes. Accused of possessing
0:30subversive literature and, to add the
0:31definitive touch of Greek tragedy or a
0:33soap opera, denounced by his own
0:35brother. That contrast, so brutal, so
0:38extreme, is the life of Tomás de
0:40Iriarte.
0:41And notice that it's an episode that
0:43often remains buried under, well, under
0:45the weight of his image as a boring
0:46academic of the era. Totally.
0:49And it's a shame because Iriarte's
0:51biography distills an intensity that
0:53completely contradicts that facade of
0:55neoclassical coldness we usually
0:56associate with him.
0:58Well, that is precisely the mission we
1:01have today in this deep dive, because
1:03we want to decode this key figure who
1:06lived between 1750 and 1791.
1:10An essential figure for understanding
1:12our literature.
1:12Sure. And for that, we have a mountain
1:15of very interesting sources today. We
1:17have educational dossiers for high
1:19school and secondary education,
1:21exhaustive literary analyses, the
1:23critical introductions from Penguin
1:25Classics,
1:26very complete, by the way.
1:27Yes, very much so. Also historical
1:29articles from the portal Estandarte and
1:31various encyclopedia entries.
1:34And reviewing all this material with an
1:36analytical eye is frankly fascinating
1:38because we realize that what is usually
1:40taught in classrooms as a simple list
1:43of literary rules that sometimes sounds
1:45boring, was actually a battlefield of
1:47egos, inquisitorial trials, and
1:49betrayals.
1:50Yes, yes. It seems like 18 th-century
1:53literature smells of powdered wigs and
1:56boredom, but Iriarte was the
1:57protagonist of great literary drama. I
2:00mean, the guy invented a kind of diss
2:03track, but with animals to criticize
2:05the bad art of his contemporaries. I
2:08love that definition of diss tracks
2:10with animals. And the value of these
2:12sources we are handling today is
2:14massive because they combine metric and
2:16literary rigor with the necessary
2:17historical context to understand
2:19something fundamental.
2:20What exactly?
2:22Well, understanding why literature went
2:24from trying to dazzle with its extreme
2:27complexity to seeking, above all, to
2:30educate society. To achieve that
2:32decoding of Iriarte, the first step is
2:35to dissect the ideological engine of
2:37his era,
2:38in other words, the leap from the
2:39Baroque to the Enlightenment, right?
2:41That’s right, the shift from the 17th
2:43to the 18th century in Spain wasn't
2:45just an aesthetic transition, it was a
2:47trauma, a complete reinvention.
2:49Right, we were coming from the Golden
2:51Age. Exactly. You’re coming from the
2:5417 th-century Baroque, marked by
2:56pessimism, the fleeting nature of life,
2:58and brutal literary complexity with
3:00Lope de Vega and Calderón de la Barca.
3:03And suddenly, a complete change of pace
3:04.
3:05Totally. With the arrival of the
3:07Bourbons in Spain, French influence
3:09enters full force. Neoclassicism is
3:11born, the famous Age of Enlightenment,
3:13and it generates a visceral rejection
3:15of everything the previous era
3:17represented.
3:18In other words, the exhaustion of the
3:19previous model.
3:21Indeed, now reason, clarity, and faith
3:24in progress take precedence, and above
3:26all, literature must have a didactic
3:29purpose. It has to teach and correct,
3:32following classical rules,
3:33Like the famous three theatrical
3:35unities, right? Action, time, and place
3:38.
3:39Those exact ones. Everything had to be
3:41measured and justified.
3:42Okay, let’s unpack this, because a
3:44question comes to mind. The standard
3:47narrative is that the Enlightenment
3:49came to rescue culture from darkness.
3:52But doesn't it seem terribly boring to
3:54go from the absolute creative freedom
3:56of the Baroque to a system where art
3:58feels like, I don't know, an IKEA
3:59instruction manual?
4:02I see why you say that.
4:03It sounds like they stripped the soul
4:05out of literature to turn it into
4:07clockwork. Why would anyone voluntarily
4:10submit to such stifling rules? What’s
4:14fascinating here is that this
4:16perspective assumes creative freedom
4:18always produces good art, and
4:20Enlightenment intellectuals like
4:22Iriarte would argue fervently the
4:24opposite.
4:25Seriously?
4:26Of course. For them, the Baroque chaos
4:28was already exhausted. The unchecked
4:30artifice had degenerated into a
4:32deafening noise that no longer
4:33contributed anything intellectually
4:35valid.
4:36In other words, lots of form, little
4:37substance.
4:38Exactly. They needed order to educate a
4:41new society. The Neoclassical obsession
4:44with rules wasn't born from a desire to
4:46bore people, but from an urgent need
4:48for clarity.
4:49Reason required order, I suppose.
4:51That's it; if the goal of art was no
4:53longer to shock or confuse the viewer,
4:56but to educate and be useful, the
4:58vehicle had to be transparent and
5:00mathematically perfect.
5:01I see.
5:02Iriarte embodied this ideal perfectly.
5:06He didn’t see the corset of rules as
5:08a prison, but as the necessary
5:09architecture so the message wouldn't
5:11collapse.
5:12And this fits perfectly with his
5:14biography, from what I see in the
5:16sources. He was born in 1750 in
5:18Tenerife, into an aristocratic family,
5:21but was raised in Madrid.
5:23Yes. under the tutelage of his uncle
5:25Juan de Iriarte,
5:26none other than the King's head
5:28librarian; in other words, he received
5:30a humanist education of the highest
5:32elite, he was an official translator, a
5:34scholar, but the detail that I think
5:36anchors this whole obsession with order
5:38and harmony is his musical side. Ah,
5:41music, so important.
5:44Of course, Iriarte played the violin,
5:46he played the viola, he composed
5:47symphonies. He even wrote a very long
5:50didactic poem called "Music" in 1779.
5:55And music is, in essence, mathematics
5:58applied to sound.
5:59Pure proportion. Exactly. And for
6:02someone immersed in that musical
6:04harmony, literary dissonance must have
6:07been physically painful. I can imagine.
6:10That is the keystone of his thinking.
6:13Music taught him that beauty is born
6:16from the proportion of tension resolved
6:18through technique.
6:19That makes sense.
6:20Think about the fact that he frequented
6:22the gatherings at the Fonda de San
6:23Sebastián in Madrid.
6:24With figures like Cadalso, right?
6:26Yes. And there, the consensus was
6:28unanimous. Good taste is learned. It is
6:31not a mystical gift that falls from the
6:32sky. It is the result of rigorous study
6:35and knowledge of tradition.
6:38Which leads us straight to the most
6:40ingenious tool Iriarte used to inject
6:43this rigor into society.
6:45The fable.
6:46Fables. Yes. That desire to educate and
6:49correct finds its perfect vehicle in a
6:51classic format that comes from Aesop,
6:53from Phaedrus, but here there is a
6:55total subversion of the format.
6:58A unique twist on this, truly.
7:01Of course, because traditionally,
7:04fables dealt with common moral vices:
7:07greed, envy, laziness. That was the
7:10specialty of his great rival, by the
7:12way, Félix María de Samaniego,
7:14who wrote for a more general or
7:16children's audience.
7:17Exactly. But Iriarte takes this format
7:20and turns it into a weapon, a
7:22masterclass. The great originality of
7:26his literary fables, which were
7:28published in 1782 with 76 poems, is
7:31that he uses animals to give lessons on
7:33literary theory.
7:35It is a super bold move. His beasts
7:38criticize plagiarism, obscurity, bad
7:40taste, and the pedantry of other
7:42writers.
7:44It's like pure, hard-core
7:45metaliterature.
7:46Totally. Literature that talks about
7:48how to make literature.
7:50So that our listeners can visualize it,
7:53it's as if a film critic made a
7:55Hollywood movie exclusively to mock
7:57directors who use too many special
7:59effects or screenwriters who copy plots
8:02.
8:03I think that's a perfect analogy. He
8:05replaces moralizing about how to be a
8:07good person with a ruthless taxonomy of
8:10the vices of the art world.
8:12Well, moving from theory to practice, I
8:14think it's vital to analyze the exact
8:16texts students see in class to
8:18demonstrate this stylistic genius of
8:20Iriarte.
8:21Let's get to it. The most iconic one,
8:23without a doubt, is "The Flute-Playing
8:25Donkey."
8:25An absolute classic.
8:26The story is simple. A donkey
8:29accidentally snorts into a flute left
8:31in the meadow by a shepherd.
8:33And the flute makes a sound.
8:34That's it. The flute emits a harmonic
8:37sound, and the donkey, without
8:38hesitation, thinks he's a musical
8:40genius.
8:41What a wonderful image. The texts
8:44capture the famous moral which goes: "
8:46Without rules of art, there are donkeys
8:48who get it right once by chance."
8:51It is a frontal attack against the myth
8:53of sudden inspiration. Uh,
8:55sure. And I wonder, who would be the
8:57flute-playing donkeys of today?
8:59Oof! Good question.
9:01I mean, I'd take it to the current
9:02digital ecosystem. They could perfectly
9:05be those content creators or
9:06one-hit-wonder viral musicians. One-hit
9:09wonders who triumph purely because of
9:11the TikTok algorithm without having
9:13real technique.
9:14Yes. Yes. The algorithm would be the
9:17equivalent of the chance of snorting
9:18into the flute.
9:19Exactly. You succeed one day and you
9:21already think you're the authoritative
9:22voice of a generation.
9:24The analogy is super pertinent because
9:26the mechanism of this poem is brilliant
9:27precisely because of its meter. Iriarte
9:30uses very short hexasyllabic verses,
9:32six syllables, right?
9:34Yes, six. And this choice creates a
9:37syncopated, light, almost burlesque
9:39rhythm. The form of the poem reflects
9:43the shallowness of the donkey's act.
9:46For Iriarte, art is a craft that
9:48requires discipline, not luck. Exactly.
9:52But his disdain for bad art branches
9:54out in other directions. Another fable
9:57that exemplifies this perfectly and is
9:59studied a lot is "The Frog and the
10:01Tadpole."
10:03Ah, I love this one.
10:04Here the criticism is no longer
10:06directed at the lack of technique or
10:08randomness, but at the excess of empty
10:10decoration.
10:11Yes, that fable presents a very
10:13powerful image. The tadpole is on the
10:16riverbank, amazed by a lush and
10:18spectacular reed bed. But the wind
10:20knocks down a reed, and the frog, the
10:22mother, takes the opportunity to show
10:24him the truth inside.
10:25And the fragment is devastating. It
10:28says, "On the outside very smooth, very
10:30shiny. On the inside all spongy, all
10:33vain.
10:34On the inside all spongy, all vain."
10:37What a way to crush someone! It's a
10:40direct criticism of what he called
10:42poetry with too much deadwood, right?
10:44Exactly. He is attacking that work
10:47which seems very pretty on the outside,
10:49full of bombastic words and ornaments,
10:51but which on the inside is completely
10:53empty of ideas, like a hollow reed.
10:55Pure 18 th-century posturing,
10:57exactly, literary posturing.
11:00But what is truly masterful about "The
11:02Frog and the Tadpole" is not just the
11:04message, but how he constructs it
11:05structurally.
11:07Tell me more about that.
11:08Well, Iriarte practices what he
11:10preaches. Here he uses a "silva,"
11:12which is a combination of verses, right
11:14?
11:14Yes. It combines seven-syllable verses,
11:17heptasyllables, with 11-syllable ones,
11:19hendecasyllables. And it's no
11:21coincidence. So, he moves from the
11:23short, playful verse of the donkey to
11:25something much more complex. Exactly.
11:27The silva requires absolute rhythmic
11:29control. Iriarte uses an enormous
11:32variety of metrics in his 76 fables to
11:35demonstrate his skill. He is showing
11:37that he does indeed master the rules he
11:39demands of others.
11:40Flexing his literary muscles. Come on.
11:42Literally. And we must make quick
11:44mentions of other fables so that our
11:46listeners, especially if they are
11:48students, take note,
11:49go ahead, because they are excellent.
11:52For example, "The Bee and the Drones,"
11:54which is a sharp critique of plagiarism
11:56and appropriating others 'work, or "The
11:58Bear, the Monkey, and the Pig," which
12:00speaks to the need for sound critical
12:02judgment.
12:03And let's not forget "The Two Rabbits,"
12:05where the famous expression about
12:07whether they are greyhounds or podencos
12:08comes from.
12:09Yes, yes. Those two rabbits who waste
12:12time arguing uselessly about the breed
12:14of the dogs chasing them instead of
12:15running away,
12:16and they get eaten. Right,
12:18distracted by absurd debates.
12:19Well, all this paints a picture of an
12:22implacable Iriarte, super-rational,
12:24obsessed with clarity. A man who
12:27defended order above all else. But, and
12:30here is the kicker, if we connect this
12:32to the big picture of his life, his
12:34personal life was full of irrational
12:36conflicts.
12:37Well, he was the personified
12:39contradiction of his era; no matter how
12:41much the Age of Enlightenment tried to
12:43impose reason, literary drama and
12:45passions were the order of the day.
12:47What a war of egos was going on.
12:49It was outrageous. Iriarte claimed in
12:51the prologue of his fables to be the
12:53first original creator of fables in
12:55Spanish.
12:55And of course, that didn't amuse
12:57Samaniego one bit,
12:58it infuriated him completely. Samaniego
13:00had published his own earlier and took
13:02it as a direct attack.
13:03Because saying, "I am the first," is
13:05just looking for a fight.
13:06Totally. And he didn't just have
13:09problems with Samaniego, he also had a
13:11fierce enmity with Juan Pablo Forner.
13:13Ah, yes. the one who published that
13:15satire against him, right? The Learned
13:17Ass.
13:18Exactly. Imagine the level of gossip
13:21back then, writing pamphlets and
13:23satires to tear each other down. The
13:26court was highly entertained by these
13:27squabbles.
13:29But anyway, moving from literary salon
13:31fights to the dark turn of this
13:33reversal. Because the most shocking
13:36fact for the audience, I’m sure, is
13:37that this great defender of courtly
13:39rules ended up condemned by the
13:40Inquisition. Yes, it’s a brutal
13:43turning point in his life.
13:45And the most twisted part of it all, as
13:47we mentioned at the beginning, is the
13:49family betrayal. He was actually
13:50denounced by his own brother,
13:52by the Dominican friar Juan Tomás de
13:54Iriarte; I mean, turning your own
13:56brother over to the Inquisition, that's
13:59heavy. And why exactly did he report
14:02him?
14:03Well, for having clandestine books in
14:05his private library. Iriarte was
14:07reading French deist and materialist
14:09thinkers, authors like Voltaire and
14:12d’Holbach.
14:13Authors who were strictly forbidden in
14:15Spain,
14:16strictly forbidden. They were the
14:18ideological enemy of religion and the
14:20traditional monarchy. And of course,
14:23for a courtier of his level to be
14:25reading that in secret was a scandal.
14:28This paradox is mind-blowing. I mean,
14:30the man who publicly defends a measured
14:32, moral art perfectly aligned with the
14:34established order, in the privacy of
14:36his home, consumes the most radical and
14:38subversive texts in Europe.
14:40It’s the duality of the Spanish
14:41Enlightenment. One foot in rational
14:43progress and the other foot trapped in
14:45the church’s social control.
14:47And what did they do to him? Because
14:49the Inquisition in the 18th century
14:50didn't burn people in the public square
14:52anymore, I assume.
14:53No. Fortunately, bonfires were no
14:54longer common,
14:55but the punishment was more of a public
14:57and psychological humiliation.
14:59He had to retract.
15:01Yes, they forced him to retract his
15:03philosophical errors, perform spiritual
15:05exercises, and complete a series of
15:07dogmatic penances. For such a proud
15:10intellectual to be forced to submit to
15:12this ritual, my goodness, it must have
15:14been devastating.
15:16Undoubtedly. But hey, he didn't let
15:18that sink him entirely, did he?
15:20True,
15:20because records show that he also
15:22brought his moral ideas to theatrical
15:24success.
15:24Yes, with comedies in prose and verse
15:26like The Pampered Young Man and The
15:28Spoiled Young Lady. Works that tried to
15:31educate the youth of the upper classes.
15:33And also, showing that desire to
15:35innovate he had, he introduced a new
15:38format in Spain, the melodrame.
15:40Ah, yes. With the work Guzmán el Bueno
15:42.
15:42A melodrame is basically a dramatic
15:44monologue where the actor’s
15:45transitions are accompanied by an
15:47orchestra.
15:48It is the perfect fusion of his two
15:50passions, theater and music, uniting
15:52human emotion with musical structure.
15:55Everything fits. The truth is that,
15:57recapping why Iriarte is so fundamental
15:59, it is clear that he managed to unite
16:01neoclassical rigor. with humor and
16:04irony,
16:05and that is what makes it so
16:06meritorious. He turned literary theory,
16:08which on paper is usually super arid,
16:10into something accessible and enduring
16:12in the Spanish school canon.
16:14The thing is, Iriarte's fables, deep
16:16down, teach us to be critical consumers
16:18of culture. They invite us to look
16:21beyond the superficial, the visually
16:23attractive, to seek real substance and
16:25originality. They alert us not to be
16:27fooled by empty ornamentation,
16:30and that idea precisely leaves us with
16:33a provocative thought to close this
16:35immersion, something our listeners can
16:37explore on their own.
16:40Let's see, tell me.
16:41Well, we have seen that Tomás de
16:43Iriarte wrote his fables to warn that
16:45true art requires study, rigor, and
16:47method, as opposed to success by chance
16:49or the empty decoration of the
16:51flute-playing donkey. Right, art as a
16:54discipline, not an accident.
16:56Well then, what would Iriarte think
16:59today of generative artificial
17:01intelligences?
17:02Wow, what a great question.
17:06The fact is that today, these
17:07intelligences can create poems with
17:09perfect meter, songs, or spectacular
17:11images in seconds without understanding
17:13a single rule of art; they just process
17:16data. It’s true, they have no
17:19consciousness of what they do.
17:20Exactly. And therein lies the great
17:23unknown. Are these artificial
17:25intelligence tools the ultimate
17:27expression of enlightened progress, the
17:29mathematical perfection Iriarte sought
17:31so much, or are they actually the
17:33definitive flute-playing donkey of our
17:35era?
17:36The perfect mechanism that manages to
17:39produce beauty by pure statistical
17:41chance. Oof! You’ve left me thinking.
17:44Well, with that reflection, we leave
17:45the audience for today. It has been a
17:47fascinating analysis. Until the next
17:49immersion.
17:50Until next time.

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