Leandro Fernández de Moratín

Leandro Fernández de Moratín (Spanish pronunciation: [leˈandɾo feɾˈnandeθ ðe moɾaˈtin]; 10 March 1760 – 21 June 1828) was a Spanish dramatist, translator and neoclassical poet. He was a major poet, dramatist and man of letters whose writings promoted the reformist ideas associated with the Spanish Enlightenment.

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. Though his poetical tastes were early developed, his father apprenticed him to a jeweller. At the age of eighteen Moratín won the second prize of the Academy for a heroic poem on the conquest of Granada, and two years afterwards he attracted more general attention with his Lección poética, a satire upon the popular poets of the day. 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.

On his return to Spain, Moratín was tonsured and presented to a sinecure benefice in the diocese of Burgos. 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.