author
Leandro Fernández de Moratín
1760–1828
Best known for bringing sharp wit and clear-eyed social criticism to the Spanish stage, this Enlightenment-era playwright wrote comedies that still feel lively and pointed. His work helped shape modern Spanish theater, especially through its attacks on bad drama, forced marriages, and empty convention.
4 Audiobooks
Modern Poets and Poetry of Spain
by James Kennedy, Juan Bautista Arriaza, Manuel Bretón de los Herreros, José de Espronceda, Leandro Fernández de Moratín, José María Heredia, Tomás de Iriarte, Gaspar de Jovellanos, Francisco Martínez de la Rosa, Juan Meléndez Valdés, Manuel José Quintana, duque de Angel de Saavedra Rivas, José Zorrilla
Comedias escogidas
by Leandro Fernández de Moratín, Molière
La jeso de knabinoj: Triakta proza komedio
by Leandro Fernández de Moratín
El sí de las niñas
by Leandro Fernández de Moratín
About the author
Born in Madrid in 1760, he became the leading dramatist of the Spanish Enlightenment and is widely regarded as the most important neoclassical playwright in Spain. He was also a poet and translator, and his writing consistently pushed for better taste, reason, and reform in the theater.
His best-known plays include La comedia nueva and El sí de las niñas. These works use humor and elegant dialogue to criticize the theatrical excesses and social pressures of his time, especially the practice of arranging marriages without a young woman's real consent.
Moratín admired French theater, translated Molière, and spent part of his later life in exile in France after the fall of Joseph Bonaparte, whom he had supported. He died in Paris in 1828, leaving behind a body of work that remains central to the story of Spanish literature.