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Article Excerpt
ABSTRACT
In the framework of the ongoing debates on the literary canon and the institutional dimension of literature, this article studies the organization, purposes, teaching curricula and revolutionary implications of the first chair of literary history (1786-1802) ever created in Spain, analyses the coetaneous texts related to the chair (v.g. treatises on literary history, lectures, textbooks, official documents), and, finally, establishes the connection between the chair and the discipline as it is practiced today (particularly cultural studies and the New Historicism). The article aims ultimately to delineate the longue durée continuum of literary studies, from its beginnings as a discipline in the eighteenth century to the present.
RESÚMEN
En el contexto de los debates actuales sobre el canon literario y la dimensión institucional de la literatura, este artículo estudia la organización, los propósitos, los planes de estudios y las implicaciones revolucionarias de la primera cátedra de historia literaria (1786-1802) creada en España, analiza los textos coetáneos relacionados con la cátedra (v.g. tratados sobre historia literaria, conferencias, libros de texto, documentos oficiales), y, por último, establece la conexión entre la cátedra y la disciplina tal como se practica hoy día (en particular los estudios culturales y el nuevo historicismo). El presente artículo, en definitiva, se propone delinear el continuum de larga duración de los estudios literarios, desde sus comienzos como disciplina hasta la actualidad.
In the last fifteen years there has been a growing interest in the field of Hispanism in the institutional dimension of literature. Born in part as a mimesis of the heated debates on the canon in departments of English, but also as a consequence of the pressure to develop a methodological self-awareness as well as a reflection of the relatively recent radical changes in the course offerings in the departments of Spanish in the United States, works by Baker (12-18), López (205-224), Mainer (151-190), Romero Tobar ("La historia" 151-183; Historia literaria), Godzich and Spadaccini, Pont and Sala Valldaura, Pozuelo Yvancos and Sánchez Aradra, and Ríos-Font (The Canon; "Literary History" 15-35) have explored long-neglected issues concerning the canon and the institutionalization of literature in Spain carried out and sustained by teaching curricula, histories of literature, anthologies and the like. The inclusion, for the first time in a history of Spanish literature, of an introductory chapter on "Literary History and Canon Formation" authored by Ríos-Font in the Cambridge History of Spanish Literature edited by Gies is thus no coincidente. This chapter can be viewed as a response to these changes, and it is a tacit, significant acknowledgment of the need to think on literary history and the canon before undertaking the writing --the construction, one is tempted to sayB of a history of literature.
In spite of the existence of sound approaches to the institutionalization of literature in Spain during the eighteenth century (e.g. Godzich and Spadaccini), there still remains a lot of work to be done. For instance, a seminal moment in a process whose outcome would be no less than the construction of our discipline has not merited the attention it deserves. I am referring to the first chair of literary history, created in 1786 at the Reales Estudios de San Isidro. (1) This limited interest is somewhat surprising if one considers that this chair meant the official imposition, in the framework of the educational system, of a new domain in the humanities Bliterary history. (2) I would like, in this article, to contribute to the ongoing debates on the canon by focusing in some detail on the creation, organization, purposes and revolutionary implications of perhaps the most important initiative to institutionalize the incipient discipline of literary studies not only in Spain, but in Europe as a whole. (3) Before proceeding to a detailed analysis of the chair, I will comment on the first proposal to create a chair of literary history. At the end of my study I will show the connection between the chair and the discipline as it is practiced today. This article, therefore, aims ultimately to delineate the longue durée continuum of our discipline, from its beginnings to the present.
From the scholar and writer Cándido María Trigueros came the first proposal ever made in Spain to create a chair of literary history. In his "Plan de un nuevo método de estudios," presented at the Academia Sevillana de Buenas Letras in June of 1768 and written in the framework of the series of projects Bsome commissioned by the government, others prepared motu propio by private institutions --designed to reform the Spanish educational system following the expulsion of the Jesuits in April of 1767, Trigueros concludes, after laying out his proposal, that "para todo lo referido, se necesitan más Cátedras que hay en el día," especially a chair of "Historia, ritos y costumbres eclesiásticos para el estudio de Teología," and "quizá otra de Historia literaria, común a todos los estudios" (in Aguilar Piñal, El Plan 47). The latter chair presupposes in fact an idea of literary history and its function put forth by Francis Bacon. In his Advancement of Learning (1605), Bacon had divided history into four categories: natural, civil, ecclesiastical, and literary (101). Of all of these, the latter is "deficient. .. [f]or no man hath propounded to himself the general state of learning to be described and represented from age to age" (101); absent such works, "the world seems to me as the statue of Polyphemus with his eye out, that part being wanting which doth most shew the spirit and life of the person" (101). Bacon states that "a just story of learning, containing the antiquities and originals of knowledges and their sects, their inventions, their traditions ... their flourishings, their oppositions, decays, depressions, oblivions, removes, with the causes and occasions of them ... throughout the ages of the world, I may truly affirm to be wanting" (101-102). Bacon's programmatic defense of literary history would constitute the point of departure for scholars like Trigueros: "The use and end of which work I do not so much design for curiosity ... but chiefly for a more serious and grave purpose; which is this, in few words, that it will make learned men wise in the use and administration of learning" (102). Literary history is not therefore a discipline like, say, moral philosophy, logic or theology, but rather an all-encompassing area whose knowledge gives a foundation to any field of study chosen by an individual. Trigueros and Bacon employ the term "literary history" in what could be termed a "pre-Romantic" sense, namely, not as dealing with "literature" as a gente within the belles-lettres, but as the history of all written knowledge. (4) Trigueros's project was never put into practice, and remained unpublished until Aguilar Piñal dug it out from oblivion and included it in his study of the plan itself (El plan 15-49). But the proposal to create a chair of literary history should not be considered as an isolated initiative. On the one hand some German scholars had already taken up Bacon's demand since the second half of the seventeenth century. Peter Lambeck has been credited as the first professor and scholar to undertake the teaching of literary history; under the influence of his mentor Gabriel Naudé, author of Advis pour dresser une bibliothéque (1627), Lambeck began in 1651 to lecture in Hamburg on topics of literary history, which resulted in the publication of his Prodromus historiae litterariae (1659). About the same time Hermann Conring, professor at the University of Helmstedt since the early 1630s, offered a course on literary history since the birth of Christ, the transcript of which (1664) would be published in 1703 as Commentarius de scriptoribus XVI post Chr.n.saeculorum, cum prolegomenis et additionibus. (5) On the other hand Trigueros's proposal sprung from both a cultural and political milieu more propitious than the seventeenth century's for historiographical endeavors. The Age of Reason, as is well known, planted the seeds of the modern historical vision of the world and its affairs. (6) In this context, history as well as literary history were seen as two crucial disciplines for a better understanding of the present, the cultural legacy of a nation, and equally important, the construction of an emerging national consciousness (see Pozuelo Yvancos and Aradra Sánchez 158-159; Ríos-Font, "Literary History" 15-35; Álvarez Barrientos, "Nación" 101-114).
The first chair of literary history was created in 1786 in the Reales Estudios de San Isidro, formerly known as the Colegio Imperial de Madrid, a teaching institution confiscated by the State from the Jesuits, along with al their properties, when the order was banned in Spain in 1767. After a period of transition, a royal decree of 13 January 1770 announced the inauguration of the Reales Estudios with significant changes. Thus, the Reales Estudios must have a "Maestro que enseñe la Lógica según las luces que le han dado los Modernos, y sin disputas Escolásticas," anda "Maestro que enseñe la Física experimental" (in Fuente 158). The chairs would be filled following the system of public exams or oposiciones, with the exception of the library and direction of the institution, both granted by Royal appointment after a recommendation made by the Consejo de Castilla. The Reales Estudios were inaugurated in October of 1771, and would soon become one of the most advanced institutions at the time, as well as an instrument of the enlightened and regalista policy of the Spanish Crown (see Simón Díaz, Historia 241-265; Aguilar Piñal, Un escritor 94-99; Fuente, 4: 156-163, 321-323).
Among the chairs created ex ovo is the chair of literary history, to be held by the main librarian (bibliotecario primero) of the Reales Estudios. This chair was born out of an initiative by...
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