Leandro Fernández de Moratín
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Leandro Fernández de Moratín | |
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Born | |
Died | 21 June 1828 | (aged 68)
Resting place | Pantheon of Illustrious Men |
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Leandro Fernández de Moratín ORE (Spanish pronunciation: [leˈandɾo feɾˈnandeθ ðe moɾaˈtin]; 10 March 1760 – 21 June 1828) was a Spanish dramatist, translator and neoclassical poet.
Biography
Moratín was born in Madrid the son of Nicolás Fernández de Moratín, a major literary reformer in Spain from 1762 until his death in 1828.
Distrusting the teaching offered in Spain's universities at the time, Leandro grew up in the rich literary environment of his father and became an admirer of Enlightenment thought. In addition to translating works of Molière and William Shakespeare into Spanish, he himself was a major poet, dramatist and man of letters whose writings promoted the reformist ideas associated with the Spanish Enlightenment. Early in his career, he was supported by statesman and author Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, who, in 1787, arranged for him to study for a year in Paris. In 1792, the Spanish government provided the funds for him to travel to England in order to extend his education. In 1790 he published his first comedy El viejo y la niña (The Old Man and the Young Girl), a sombre work which attacked the consequences of arranged marriages between people of differing ages. Two years later, in 1792, he wrote the play La comedia nueva (The New Comedy), a dramatic attack on the extravagant plots used by other contemporary playwrights.
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Moratín died in Paris and was buried there in the
References
- Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. .
External links
- Works by Leandro Fernández de Moratín at Project Gutenberg
- Works by Leandro Fernández de Moratín at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)