Brian Hamnett - The Enlightenment in Iberia and Ibero-America

IBERIAN AND LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES

The Enlightenment in Iberia and Ibero-America

Series Editors

Professor David George (Swansea University)

Professor Paul Garner (University of Leeds)

Editorial Board

David Frier (University of Leeds)
Lisa Shaw (University of Liverpool)
Gareth Walters (Swansea University)
Rob Stone (University of Birmingham)
David Gies (University of Virginia)
Catherine Davies (University of London)
Richard Cleminson (University of Leeds)
Duncan Wheeler (University of Leeds)
Jo Labanyi (New York University)
Roger Bartra (Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico)

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IBERIAN AND LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES

The Enlightenment in Iberia and Ibero-America

BRIAN HAMNETT

Brian Hamnett, 2017

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner. Applications for the copyright owners written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, 10 Columbus Walk, Brigantine Place, Cardiff CF10 4UP.

www.uwp.co.uk

British Library CIP Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78683-046-3

eISBN 978-1-78683-048-7

The right of Brian Hamnett to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Cover image: Lorenzo Quiros, The entry into the city of Madrid of King Carlos III at Platerias ornamental street (1760); collection Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid. Prisma Archivo/Alamy.

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Over recent decades the traditional languages and literatures model in Spanish departments in universities in the United Kingdom has been superseded by a contextual, interdisciplinary and area studies approach to the study of the culture, history, society and politics of the Hispanic and Lusophone worlds categories that extend far beyond the confines of the Iberian Peninsula, not only in Latin America but also to Spanish-speaking and Lusophone Africa.

In response to these dynamic trends in research priorities and curriculum development, this series is designed to present both disciplinary and interdisciplinary research within the general field of Iberian and Latin American Studies, particularly studies that explore all aspects of Cultural Production (inter alia literature, film, music, dance, sport) in Spanish, Portuguese, Basque, Catalan, Galician and indigenous languages of Latin America. The series also aims to publish research in the History and Politics of the Hispanic and Lusophone worlds, at the level of both the region and the nation-state, as well as on Cultural Studies that explore the shifting terrains of gender, sexual, racial and postcolonial identities in those same regions.

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Enlightenment is not an ideology but a state of mind. The way from pre-enlightenment to a state of enlightenment is through experience: it passes from a condition of not knowing to one of knowledge. The difference is between not understanding what is going on and understanding it. In Wagners opera, Parsifal, the ignorant, innocent young man, who has just fired an arrow into a flying swan, witnesses the ceremony of the Knights of the Grail without understanding anything. Grnemanz, the narrator, has tried to tell him the significance of what he witnessed but to no avail. It takes Parsifal two more Acts of the opera (and several more hours) to understand through experience the meaning of these events. Enlightenment, it appears, cannot be told: knowledge is gained through experience and suffering. Symbols and rituals then unravel their meaning. Enlightenment has been revealed as a process of spiritual purification.

We can see from this that Enlightenment has frequently been associated with religion with awakening and regeneration and, it should be said, not exclusively associated with Buddhism. In Christian terms, enlightenment may be the working of divine grace. The attribution of Enlightenment primarily to eighteenth-century philosophers and government ministers has caused the original meaning to be practically (though not entirely) lost. This is especially so, when latter-day protagonists of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment associate the term specifically with anti-religion. Few eighteenth-century philosophers did that. In the Iberian and Ibero-American Enlightenment, most ilustrados sought to bind together inherited religion with the new methods of thinking. They argued for reform in Church and State, in law and education, and in the practice of science and medicine. When ilustrados who were members of the clergy argued for reform of religious practice, they were calling for an intensification of belief and not for its abandonment. When imperial monarchy broke down at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the instruments of reform could no longer be kings and their ministers. When constitutional change became necessary for the survival of political society, attention turned to new forms of government and social organisation. Republicanism and federalism were among the offsprings. Most political figures saw the transformation in Christian terms.