The pattern of mutual support in the commercial and financial sectors was common in other countries, as various of the translated plays show. In *Los comerciantes*, Mr. Rainmur, a Dutch merchant who lodges with Pancracio in Venice, puts his wealth at his colleague's disposal when he is about to be arrested for being unable to pay three bills of exchange the following day due to "quiebras de correspondientes, pérdidas de mercancías en el mar, y sobre todo la mala conducta de mi hijo" ("the bankruptcy of correspondents, losses of goods at sea, and in particular the misconduct of my son." My trans.). 14 A particularly interesting case occurs in *Los dos amigos, ó sea el negociante de León*, whose central subject matter is "las vicisitudes y quiebras que tiene el Comercio" ("the difficulties and bankruptcies of commerce." My trans.),15 and the solidarity between those involved: issues concerning the liquidity of the wealthy merchant Aurelio, on the eve of repayment, due to the sudden death of the banker who held his

13 Cruz 2000, 76.

14 Anon. (a) n. d. (I, 4).

15 Botti n. d. (I, 10). The work, premièred in 1807, is a translation of *Les deux amis ou Le négociant de Lyon* (1770), by P.A. Caron de Beaumarchais.

money; this gives rise to a series of generous acts in which he is financed by his friend, the government tax inspector Roberto, Albano, a general accountant with the Finance Ministry, and his own daughter, with money from her dowry.

The standard plot in such plays makes clear that in many cases outside funding is produced after the businessman confronts difficulties, and, when about to be imprisoned, requests it from within the family, from the would-be spouse of his daughter, often a rich and greedy merchant, who abandons the girl when he fears his dowry in peril. This pattern is evident in *Los franceses generosos*, in the character Blas, while *El triunfo del amor y la amistad* presents an interesting plot alternative from a socio-economic point of view: faced with the refusal of Vangrey to help the father of his future wife, it is Jenwal, the cashier of Darmont, in love with his daughter Faustina, who replaces the money dealer in prison and obtains money from his friend Smirn, overturning the original bankruptcy and in return is rewarded with the hand of Faustina. Kinship practices in the commercial sector, with a cashier or assistant linked by marriage to the head of the business, thus guaranteeing its continuation,16 are made evident in this and many other works treating the same subject matter.

Some of these plays utilize another theatrical feature in order to emphasize the honesty of businessmen: contrasting characters. It is a simple device, opposing the practices of a good and bad merchant. One effective example of its use, both with regard to plot and the spectator's potential moral lesson, centers on Lorenzo and Bruno in *El hombre agradecido* by Luciano Comella. 17 It is also very effective in *Los comerciantes*, focusing on a contrast between characters and the way in which their profession is exercised by Pancracio and Rainmur, longstanding businessmen with solid ethical principles, contrasted with the reprehensible conduct of the young Jacinto who has a commercial business as part of his father's firm. The moral drama sets out to demonstrate that his dubious practices and lack of scruples derive from his youth and the influence of bad company. By means of this contrast the author emphasizes the personalities of the established businessmen, both models of mercantile behavior, made clear in the work's title when staged in Barcelona: *Modelo de comerciantes* ("*The model for businessmen.*" My trans).

The works featured here bear witness to the fidelity with which drama portrays practices in the commercial and financial world of Spain and other countries. And they achieve it by means of theatrical techniques which aim

16 Cruz 2000, 40–42.

17 See the analysis by Schuchardt 2018, 353–372.

to maintain the spectator's interest and provoke a reaction which favors moral instruction. Realism and emotion, sometimes even pathos, are undoubtedly the basis of the success of these works, as is evident in the review by the *Diario Pinciano* ("*The Valladolid Journal*." My trans.) of the première in Valladolid of *Los perfectos comerciantes* ("*The perfect businessmen*." My trans.) by Valladares de Sotomayor: "Muchos espectadores de esta profesión había en el teatro. Unos salieron enternecidos y otros avergonzados. Esta es una comedia digna de repetirse" ("There were many spectators of the same profession in attendance. Some left after being emotionally touched, others out of shame. This is a play worthy of being repeated." My trans.). 18 The "sentimental catharsis" caused some spectators, after seeing themselves and their bad practices reflected on stage, to feel ashamed, and, we might imagine, to seek to correct them. The educative function of the theater was thus achieved.

#### **4. Maxims**

The use of maxims was another strategy available to the dramatist, and was especially useful in ideological drama, as in the plays featured; it becomes the vehicle for political measures likely to destroy prejudices concerning certain economic activities exercised by the middle classes. But a plain moral message risked boring the spectator, hence its use provoked mixed reactions. The case of *El hombre agradecido* may serve to demonstrate the situation in some detail.

The play was premièred on May 6, 1790, and a learned journal, the *Memorial literario* ("*Literary Gazette.*" My trans.), published a review that same month, beginning with a detailed exposition of the plot before analyzing character. Commentaries on Blasa are especially interesting, a wife whose vanity derives from her noble status, but who scorns the base occupation of her business husband, Lorenzo, and has frittered away his profits living as a woman of fashion, a person whose character – that is to say, her dramatic portrayal – strikes the reviewer as extreme and unrealistic:

El carácter de Dª Blasa es cierto que si el Autor se propuso que fuese el de una muger loca ó estupida, y que en esto consistiese el ser noble ó tener el capricho de tal, lo consiguió á maravilla, porque en ella no brilla de ningun modo, ni la razon, ni rayo de ella. […] ¿Puede haber en la naturaleza un carácter semejante? […] ¿Dónde se halla una muger como esta? El Autor la halla en la Nobleza. Asi con la pintura de este carácter, no podia menos de herir el sentido comun y aun de creerse que aqui no se pintaba una muger qual se propuso al principio sino ingerir varios rasgos, dirigidos directamente á

18 *Diario Pinciano*, 7.02.1787.

algunas personas determinadas de alto rango, como muchos querian comprender en las expresiones de montar en jaca, subirla al estrado, regalar vestidos bordados á los toreros, que los nobles siempre están debiendo a los comerciantes, que las Baronias y Regimientos se comercian, etc. 19

("The character of Doña Blasa is correct if the author intended her to be a mentally disordered or stupid woman, and if this consisted in her being noble or behaving as if she were, it worked superbly, because it did not stand out in her, nor was she acting from reason or was there any sign of it. […] Can one find in nature a character like that? […] Where can one find a woman like her? The author identifies her character with nobility. In this way his depiction of her can only offend common sense and one can only believe that such a woman was not characterized as such originally but adopted various traits directed especially at people of high status, and many would understand from expressions such as ride a pony, elevate her to the ladies area, donate embroidered clothing to bull-fighters, say that nobles always owe debts to businessmen, that highranking noble and military ranks can be purchased." My trans.)

As we can appreciate, the critic disapproves of the defense of business and businessmen based on a criticism of the nobility, their idleness, social uselessness and delight in luxury and extravagant expenditure. But the reviewer is especially displeased by the amount of criticism Blasa directs against business, and the fact that her negative remarks have no counterbalance, that is to say that they are not firmly rebutted by other "honorable" characters: Bruno, Lorenzo, or Antonia, his sensible sister-in-law. Hence, after quoting some pejorative lines by Blasa about business, he points out:

Qué ocasión esta para rechazar esta injuria al comercio, compuesto segun Dª Blasa de enredos; qué ocasion para decirla algo de la palabra, buena fé, puntualidad y hombria de bien de los comerciantes en general, de su honrado empleo en proporcionar las comodidades humanas y muchas utilidades á la República, para que de este modo fuese en contraste la razon con la locura. 20

("What an opportunity this provides to reject this insult to commerce, constituting nothing but trouble according to Doña Blasa; what an opportunity to tell her something about keeping one's word, good faith, being on time and good character in businessmen in general, referring to their honorable employment in providing human commodities and many other useful services to the state, all in order to contrast reason and mad behavior by such means." My trans.)

And since the characters in the play do not do so, it falls to the reviewer himself, using arguments and phrases to be found in many an essay or theoretical

19 *Memorial literario*, May 1790, 139–140.

20 *Mem. lit.*, 141.

treatise published at the time in defense of business and on its compatibility with being noble:

El comercio puede hallarse en todas las profesiones civiles, y por consiguiente en la nobleza; el comercio jamás ha envilecido, ni el noble pierde por el comercio: ni dexa de haber nobles comerciantes, ni pueden menos de comerciar en sus frutos y rentas; y ¿qué harán con sus fabricas los que las tengan, ó qué harían los que las tuviesen? Hasta los Reyes comercian en su línea; y no puede haber estado feliz sin comercio. ¿Cómo, pues, no se contrasta este desprecio de Dª Blasa?21

("Trade is to be found in all civil professions and also for that reason among the nobility. Trade has never been degrading, nor do nobles lose anything by trade, nor do there cease to be nobles in trade, neither can they help but do business by the results they produce or their income. What will their factories do for those who own them or what would they engage in if they had them? Even monarchs do business in their fashion and no country can be happy without commerce. How come, then, that this scorn from Doña Blasa is not made subject to comparison?" My trans.)

What this review essentially makes evident is that in order to be effective in destroying prejudices and changing behavior, theatrical works must be clear and employ contrasts, not only in the plot and portrayal of characters, but also in the opinions expressed. It equally provides evidence of a precise ideological focus in defense of commerce and its practitioners, as well as of a nobility engaged in business, who, in the opinion of this reviewer of enlightened ideas, may not be attacked at the same time as defending citizens who are useful to the state, while also plebeian.

Embracing a moral and educative conception of the theater, this and other reviews in the *Memorial literario* suggest that it is not enough to represent on stage every mechanical trade one aims to dignify or professions essential to the economic development of the country such as businessmen and financiers, nor is it sufficient to advance arguments which demonstrate by honest, faultless behavior that the demeaning to which they are subjected is baseless. It is necessary for dramatists to sprinkle their plays with the maxims which unfailingly emphasize to the spectators the moral message of the plays and government policy: encouraging commitment, love of work, and good business practice.

This is what many dramatists achieved. In *El filósofo sin saberlo*22 there is an insistence, in various interchanges between the prosperous merchant Mr. Vanderk and his son, a victim of accusations of the indignity of such an occupation, that nobility (Vanderk hides his noble status because he took part in a

21 *Mem. lit.*, 141–142.

22 A translation of *Le philosophe sans le savoir* (1766), by Michel-Jean Sedaine.

duel) is not incompatible with the profession of commerce since "en un siglo tan esclarecido no puede quitar la nobleza lo que es capaz de darla" ("in an age as enlightened as the present nobility cannot be removed by something able to bestow it." My trans.). The maxims in praise of commerce and its social usefulness do not fail to appear:

¿Y que estado es, hijo, el de un hombre que de un rasgo de pluma se hace obedecer de cabo á cabo del mundo? Su nombre, su firma no necesita como la moneda de que su valor intrinseco sirva de fianza al sello del Soberano: su persona lo hace todo y basta que firme. […] No es á un solo pueblo, á una sola nacion á quien sirve; sino a todas. […] Somos en la superficie de la tierra como otras tantas hebras de seda que unen á las naciones y las obligan á recobrar la paz por el bien del comercio. Esto es, hijo, en suma, un honrado negociante. 23

("And what status is there, son, in a man who with one stroke of the pen can make himself obeyed throughout the world? His name, his signature do not require something like money whose intrinsic value is guaranteed by the image of the sovereign; his person alone is sufficient and only his signature is needed. […] He does not serve just one people or a single nation but all of them. […] On the surface of the earth we are like so many strands of silk which unite nations and oblige them to restore peace through the good of commerce. This, in short, son, is what constitutes an honorable businessman." My trans.)

Proof that the practice of commerce can lead to nobility is evident in Aurelio, protagonist of *Los dos amigos,* who, as a result of his services to the state, is going to be raised to the nobility on the very day in which the action is set. Equally present in this work is the explicit defense of the benefits to the state derived from the income brought about by business and received directly or indirectly by all the workers employed in Aurelio's textile industry:

[E]n Leon mantengo doscientos telares: para la proporcion de las sedas se necesitan triples brazos. Igual numero de personas se ocupan en los plantíos de las moreras, y en el cuidado de los Gusanos de seda. Lo que se extrae de mi Fábrica es vendido por todos los Mercaderes del Reyno, y todos estos viven y ganan: y asi como la industria eleva el valor de las materias al centuplo, asi mismo todas esas personas, empezando por mi, rinden alegremente al Estado un tributo proporcionado á la utilidad que les granjea la propia emulacion. […] ¿Y quién hace volver en tiempo de paz todo el oro que la guerra dispensa? Ninguno es capaz de contrastar al Comercio el honor de volver al Estado ya exhausto aquel nervio y los caudales que habia perdido. Si, amigo, interin reposa el Guerrero, el Negociante sostiene la Patria. 24

23 Anon. (b) n. d. (II, 8–9).

24 Botti n. d. (II, 15–16).

("In León I operate two hundred looms, and because of the provision of the silks triple that number of workers is required. The same number of people are employed in the plantations of mulberry bushes and tending to silkworms. The products from my factory are sold by every businessman in the kingdom, and all of them make a living and a profit, and in this way industry multiplies the value of materials a hundred-fold, and in a similar fashion all these people, beginning with me, happily render to the state a tribute proportional to the usefulness which competitiveness creates. […] And who restores in peace-time the expenditure which war causes? No-one can oppose to commerce the honor of providing the backbone and wealth which had already been lost in an already exhausted state. If, my friend, the warrior then takes his rest, it is the businessman who keeps the motherland afloat." My trans.)

For similar reasons we could mention certain passages from *El comerciante de Burdeos*, in an unfortunately incomplete translation by Valladares of an interesting French work. 25 The play has certain similarities with *El hombre agradecido*, in that its protagonist is an honest, prosperous plebeian merchant married to a spendthrift wife, with a degree of nobility in that her brother is a Baron, for whom "el no tener titulo de Marquesa ni Duquesa y solo el de su marido le es carga mui pesada" ("not having the title of Marchioness or Duchess and bearing only that of her husband is a very heavy burden." My trans.), and who denies "ser muger de un Negociante y asi imagina que el marido de la hija enoblecerá la madre" ("being the wife of a businessman and therefore imagines that her daughter being married to a nobleman will elevate the mother." My trans.). 26 *El comerciante de Burdeos* is proof of the reticence of some nobles in acknowledging the worth and representative nature of traders, bankers and business agents in contemporary society. The Baron, brother-in-law of the businessman Bontam, is very proud of recommending to his niece Rosa a noble husband who will allow her to "salir de entre el polvo de los almacenes" ("get out from under the dust of the workshops." My trans.); he also holds this opinion, which is rebutted by the businessman Dupuis:

Yo me admiro que un hombre tal como el Sr. Baron, á quien no se le puede negar el talento, pueda encapricharse de una preocupacion gotica, de que el Comercio es un estado vil: pues no, no lo es asi, y esto nace de no conocerlo. Por los favores que se dispensan al Comercio se manifiesta bastante la estimacion que de él se hace. Los dias de la ignorancia y de la barbaridad ya han pasado. 27

25 *Le commerçant de Bordeaux* (1770), by Sébastien Gazon-Dourxigné.

26 Valladares (a) n. d. (I, 2–3).

27 Valladares (a) n. d. (I, 8).

("I am amazed that a man like the Baron, whose talent cannot be denied, is capable to embracing the whimsical medieval prejudice that commerce is a degrading activity. No, it is not like that, and such a belief derives from a lack of knowledge. As a result of the favors granted to commerce is revealed the high esteem in which it is held. The days of ignorance and barbarity are over." My trans.)

The remarks in defense of commerce appear in a lively dialogue in which Dupuis sets out the contributions of this activity to the state, in the most concrete arguments, based on its moral and economic worth: "[N]ada es bajo en un estado que procura los medios de exercitar actos de bondad" ("nothing is denigrating in an occupation which facilitates the means of carrying out acts of charity." My trans.): it provides work which is able to relieve the misery of the poor, and can "volver en provecho de la sociedad humana tantos brazos que puede ser se armaran a destruirla" ("turn to the benefit of human society the man-power which might otherwise be armed to destroy it." My trans.). 28 What is more, trade promotes the circulation of money, because it provides the rich with useless, expensive objects; in this way, money derived from their riches buys luxuries which indirectly benefit the state.

The words of Vanderk, Aurelio and Dupuis translate those of the original French characters, but their validity in a Spanish context is clear if we compare them with the arguments of Spanish writers on commerce, accustomed to stimulating the exercise of mercantile activity. For example, in praising wholesale traders in his *Bosquejo de política económica española* ("*Outline of Spanish political economy.*" My trans.), Campomanes wrote:

Estos son el fomento de la república y los canales por donde gira una gran porción de su sangre hacia el erario y hacia los particulares, con especie de flujo en las compras que hacen y de reflujo en las ventas con que surten al común. De su abundancia nace la baratura y la conveniencia. Este gremio de hombres es centro de la felicidad de las repúblicas. 29

("They are the ones who stimulate the development of the state and provide the channels through which a vast amount of its blood reaches the treasury and individuals, producing a flow by means of the purchases made and the resulting sales which supply the common good. Out of their abundance cheapness comes as well as convenience. This association of men is the focal point of the happiness of states." My trans.)

28 Valladares (a) n. d. (I, 10).

29 Rodríguez Campomanes 1984, 131–132.

#### **5. Conclusion**

We should finally ask ourselves to what extent the body of plays centered on the world of work contributed to the educational aims of the theater, firing spectators with a love of virtue and rejection of vice; that is to say, fiction helping to reduce prejudice associated with certain activities which restrained the economic advance of a society which at the time was redefining the concepts of honor, virtue and social usefulness.

There can be no doubt that government counted on the support of willing dramatists who for over two decades made a fashionable dramatic subject out of the difficulties of artisans, manufacturers, bankers and businessmen, all virtuous, honorable citizens put forward as models of exemplary conduct in accordance with the spirit of the reform plans which legislation had already begun to establish. The theater undoubtedly enabled this message of renewal to reach an audience which included manufacturers and businessmen tempted to abandon their profession, having tired of its bad reputation and wishing to make good in other fields and see their social status recognized. The reading of published plays perhaps permitted nobles wary of the honor associated with commerce to reflect on prejudices which seemed old-fashioned and inappropriate in a period enlightened by reason and progress.

These were realist works which reflected a particular reality and a desire to transform it. If they were effective in changing attitudes and modifying social practices, then that is something which historians should examine, but the close reading of some plays and their reception by members of the public generates few expectations. It is evident that some works scrupulously respected the actions and objectives of government in favoring progress, but we also know that they were less well received, perhaps because of their excessive didacticism which in the end frustrated the healthy propagandistic intentions of their authors. Audience records show that the most successful works were not the ones which transmitted a moralistic economic message directly, ones over-loaded with maxims and moral speeches, but rather those in which dramatists were skillful at slimming down and integrating the didactic element in a well-structured plot, which was both entertaining and provided surprises.

Overall, it seems undeniable that this body of sentimental dramas, as well as some works centered on manners which dealt with this same subject matter, transmitted to citizens of late 18th-century Spain values which defined a modernizing society: work as a way of achieving a position in society, prestige, honor; also the value of hard cash as an indicator of status and associated with well-being; the honesty of a professional activity which generates confidence and forms the basis of reputation, renown and a good name. And they achieved it, as for much other subject matter, by casting an eye on Europe. Many of these works, either translated from or set in England, France and Italy, make known a social model to which one could aspire, a materialization of the ideal of progress and economic prosperity and the flexibility of a class system which a reformist sector wished to achieve in Spanish society on the eve of the nineteenth century. 30

#### **Bibliography**

30 The English translation of this text was carried out by my colleague and friend, Professor Philip Deacon (University of Sheffield), a renowned specialist in eighteenth-century Spanish culture, to whom I am most grateful.

### Claire Pignol

# **Goethe's** *Wilhelm Meister***, Rousseau's** *Emile***, Defoe's** *Robinson Crusoe***: The Embarrassment of Choosing a Profession**

**Abstract** This article questions the determinants in choice of profession among the three main characters in Defoe's *Robinson Crusoe*, Rousseau's *Emile, or Education* and Goethe's *Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship*. After analyzing their choices through the lens of human capital, it concludes, based on the characters' innermost deliberations and trajectories, that a comparison of return on investment is not a key factor in choosing a particular type of training or profession. Choices made at the beginning of adulthood depend, first and foremost, on the self-representations of the characters, and on their desires and talents. Their education and apprenticeship give them access to a self-knowledge that, although disappointing some of their expectations and hopes, allows them to integrate happily into a world that requires everyone to engage in a profession useful to others.

**Keywords:** Goethe's *Wilhelm Meister*, Rousseau's *Emile*, Defoe's *Robinson Crusoe*, education, division of labor, human capital, rational choice.

#### **1. Introduction: Economics from a reading of literature: The reasons behind our economic decisions**

This text does not propose an inquiry into the legacy of Rousseau in Goethe's novel. Neither does it consider *Wilhelm Meister* within the context of literary or intellectual history, nor contribute to the history of the reception of economic ideas. It explores economic notions inherited from the economic thought reflected in literary and philosophical texts of the 18th century, among which the notion of rational choice holds an important place. Current economists – and maybe not only economists – think about choices of education and training for a profession in terms of human capital. Education and training are understood as investments that produce returns, mainly through wages for the individual and economic growth for society. The returns on investment depend on external resources, such as technologies, and internal resources, such as talents, which condition our investments and determine the choice to invest in human rather than physical capital, as well as the type of education and training to be promoted.

 Vautrin offers Rastignac "a lesson about his future prospects," "paints a detailed portrait of the various possible careers that await his young friend if he pursues studies in law or medicine, fields in which professional competence counts more than inherited wealth" and "explains very clearly to him what yearly income he can aspire to in each of these professions."1 Rastignac must make a tradeoff between, on the one hand, the "mediocre income"2 associated with a profession achieved through study, and, on the other, the income from financial capital gained through a strategic marriage. Piketty points out that "democratic modernity is founded on the belief that inequalities based on individual talent and effort are more justified than other inequalities."3 He questions the legitimacy of inequalities with regard to a concept of justice commonly shared in contemporary democratic societies and elucidates the social conditions that allow people to choose between investing in human or financial capital according to their expected returns. Moreover, he shows that this is not really a choice, since social conditions (especially inheritance tax) should lead any well-informed agent who knows how to make a trade-off, if he is not constrained by the different moral rules held by Rastignac and Vautrin,4 to prefer financial capital to human capital.

Our question is a little different and concerns the parameters on which these choices depend and, in particular, the choice of training that gives access to a trade and its associated income. Piketty certainly does not summarize an economic trade-off by comparing the expected returns of different possibilities. He is aware that other constraints come into play and points out that Rastignac, for example, mentions the fact that the future heiress is "neither very pretty nor very appealing."5 Moreover, Rastignac is not yet willing to start his own career as an assassin. But his work does not delve into what, apart from social impossibilities, discourages us from basing a choice primarily on the expected income.

Reading Defoe, Rousseau and Goethe, we question the reasons given by their characters, after careful deliberation, for their choices. These reasons matter, for they make clear what is hidden in the economic trade-off: the nature of the choice, and the individual's purpose and self-representation – i.e*.*, of talents, constraints, inner desires – that guide and motivate such choices. These representations not only form the basis of their choices, but also shape the agents' perception of the results of their choices. Like philosophy, but by other means, narrative literature

1 Piketty 2014, 239.

2 Piketty 2014, 239.

3 Piketty 2014, 241.

4 In order to secure the girl's inheritance, Rastignac must still murder her father.

5 Piketty 2014, 240.

questions the nature of human choice from the singular path of one character's point of view. The three characters, Robinson, Emile and Wilhelm, express feelings – expectations, hopes, disappointments, regrets – associated with their choices of education and training. These feelings show the reader what is at stake in such decisions.

#### **2. Working men: Reluctance or hostility**

*Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship* (1795), *Emile, or Education* (1762) and *Robinson Crusoe* (1719), in spite of their differences, share a common constraint: Before entering adulthood for Emile, or on entering adulthood for Wilhelm Meister and Robinson Crusoe, the characters need to choose a profession and begin their training. They become economic agents by having to find a place in society through their chosen work. The reasons for this necessity differ for each character and give rise to expressions of reluctance, sometimes hostility, either to the necessity of labor or to specific trades.

Rousseau's character, Emile, is an aristocrat whose fortune allows him not to have to engage in work. Rousseau uses two arguments to support the necessity of learning a trade. The first is a factual argument, even though it is merely forecast and has not yet happened: "The crisis is approaching, and we are on the edge of a revolution."6 Since no one can be sure that Emile will keep his fortune, he must learn a way to earn his living. The second and main argument is moral: "in society, one lives at the cost of others, he owes them in labour the cost of his keep; there is no exception to this rule. Man in society is bound to work; rich or poor, weak or strong, every idler is a thief."7 Rousseau imagines the outraged surprise of Emile's mother, for whom learning a trade would be disgraceful: "A trade for my son! My son a working man! What are you thinking of, sir?"8 Rousseau dismisses this objection, wishing "to raise him to the status of a man," a status that requires him to "work for honour, not for need." In this instance, "honour" is not to be understood as that which arouses the admiration of contemporaries, and thus Rousseau enjoins his audience not to "cultivate the arts which depend on the artist's reputation," require "fame," and make those who exercise it "the sport of public opinion,"9 threatening them with an odious servility incompatible with humanity. This is why one must not teach the child

6 Rousseau 1921, 145.

7 Rousseau 1921, 146.

8 Rousseau 1921, 146.

9 Rousseau 1921, 147.

"learning adapted to feed the mind, not the body,"10 nor encourage him to be "an embroiderer, a gilder, a polisher […] a musician, an actor, or an author."11 Rousseau paradoxically concludes: "I would rather have him a shoemaker than a poet."12 The person who has "recourse, at need, to [his] hands and [his] handiwork" escapes such servitude. Hence Rousseau does not base the choice of career on the child's real or imagined talents, as this would impose conditions for fulfillment on the chosen profession: "Remember I demand no talent, only a trade, a genuine trade, a mere mechanical art, in which the hands work harder than the head, a trade which does not lead to fortune but makes you independent of her." We must not lay "too much stress on the choice of a trade; as it is a manual occupation, Emile's choice is no great matter."13

Wilhelm Meister and Robinson Crusoe's situations differ from that of Emile. They belong to the bourgeoisie, and the necessity of work is for them a matter of fact imposed by circumstances. However, the kind of work to which they are bound has been chosen by their fathers. Robinson's father, who "got a good estate by merchandise,"14 chose the law for his son, where he "had a prospect of raising [his] fortune by application and industry, with a life of ease and pleasure."15 Robinson is intended for "the upper station of low life"16 which is, according to his father, "the most suited to human happiness, not exposed to the miseries and hardships, the labor and sufferings of the mechanic part of mankind, and not embarrassed with the pride, luxury, ambition, and envy of the upper part of mankind."17 Robinson resists such reasonable advice: "I would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea; and my inclination to this led me strongly against the will, nay, the commands of my father."18

Wilhelm Meister, similarly to Robinson, explains from the beginning of the narration that he "had been set apart for the mercantile life, and placed under the guidance of a neighbor in the counting-house."19 He rebels against this imposed choice: "my spirit at this very time recoiled more forcibly than ever from all that

10 Rousseau 1921, 147.

11 Rousseau 1921, 147.

12 Rousseau 1921, 148.

13 Rousseau 1921, 149.

14 Defoe 1995, 9.

15 Defoe 1995, 10.

was to bind me to a low profession. It was to the stage that I aimed at consecrating all my powers – on the stage that I meant to seek all my happiness and satisfaction."20 His association with the aristocracy makes him regret not being one of those "whom their birth of itself exalts above the lower stages of mankind," who can enjoy the "convenience," the "ease of movement" allowed by a fortune, for "who can better know the worth and worthlessness of earthly things, than he that has had within his choice the enjoyment of them from youth upwards?"21 In a letter to his friend Werner,22 he explains the reasons for his persistent choice of the stage as a means of reconciling his own desires with the circumstances imposed on him by his origins. The need to work goes against his nature: "To speak it in a word, the cultivation of my individual self, here as I am, has from my youth upwards been constantly though dimly my wish and my purpose. The same intention I still cherish […]. Had I been a nobleman, our dispute would soon have been decided; but, being a simple burgher, I must take a path of my own."23

Wilhelm's misfortune is due to his social origins. If the nobleman "does and makes,"24 the "burgher" "effects and procures; he must cultivate some single gifts in order to be useful; and it is beforehand settled, that, in his manner of existence, there is no harmony, and can be none, since he is bound to make himself of use in one department, and so has to relinquish all the others."25 Such a condition goes against Wilhelm's own desire: "This harmonious cultivation of my nature, which has been denied me by birth, is exactly what I most long for."26 Wilhelm is here similar to Erich Auerbach's Stendhal, "aristocratic son of the *ancien regime grande bourgeoisie*," who "of course, like his heroes, […] can work and work efficiently, when that is what is called for," but cannot "take anything

20 Goethe 2000, 27.

21 Goethe 2000, 93.

22 On the opposition between Werner and Wilhelm on economics, see Urban 2013.

23 Goethe 2000, 167.

24 Goethe 2000, 168: "If the nobleman, merely by his personal carriage, offers all that can be asked of him, the burgher by his personal carriage offers nothing, and can offer nothing. The former had a right to seem; the latter is compelled to be, and what he aims at seeming becomes ludicrous and tasteless. The former does and makes, the latter but effects and procures; he must cultivate some single gifts in order to be useful, and it is beforehand settled, that in his manner of existence there is no harmony, and can be none, since he is bound to make himself of use in one department, and so has to relinquish all the others."

25 Goethe 2000, 168.

26 Goethe 2000, 168.

like practical professional work seriously in the long run. Love, music, passion, intrigue, heroism, these are the things that make life worthwhile […]"27

In spite of the differences both in the constraints that limit their choices, and in the desires that animate them, the three characters are economic agents insofar as they must experiment with labor in order to make a living and fit into society. Thus, Marthe Robert writes about Robinson Crusoe, who "breaks the conventions of a purely theoretical Utopia, where life sustains itself miraculously without taking issue with concrete problems"28:

For the first time in narrative literature, reality could not be vanquished with only the strength of desire, one needed tools, calculations, all the experience and patience of a workman. Up to this point the novel was a notoriously idle genre […] the rule suggests that one never works. Crusoe put an end to that imposed idleness […] With him, work, exertion, and need took their place at the heart of the utopia. It was no longer a case of denying the empirical world in order to take revenge on or lament how disappointingly bereft one was, but instead to transform it at any moment into a vast workshop where the mind and the hands were equally active. 29

Certainly, the worlds of Emile and Wilhelm are not utopias. They do not clash with the question of subsistence as strongly as Robinson's world does. But these are modern and realistic characters, since the social order, embodied by a father or tutor, imposes on them a work from which they must draw their subsistence and find their place in society. In this sense, they foreshadow what Auerbach will designate as "realism," understood as a "serious literary treatment of everyday occupations and social classes – merchants, artisans, peasants, slaves – of everyday scenes and places – home, shop, field, store – of everyday customs and institutions – marriage, children, work, earning a living – in short, of the people and its life."30

Meanwhile, they are not the lowest in society and can choose which kind of work to experiment with and practice. Robinson and Wilhelm, in desiring an occupation on the sea or the stage, show that their choices are guided by something more important – self-representation – than mere well-being and expected returns on investment in human capital. As Urs Urban points out, for Wilhelm it is a matter of recognizing talent (if he has one), of training and perfecting

27 Auerbach 2003, 464.

28 Robert 2000, 141.

29 Robert 2000, 141.

30 Auerbach 2003, 31.

himself to enable him to access the "beauty of life" – or, in other words, of translating "vocation" (*Berufung*) into "profession" (*Beruf*). 31

Emile differs from them both in that his trade is not chosen by himself, as he is a child, but by his tutor, with the knowledge of self and others that is implied by the experience of adulthood. Rousseau certainly expresses confidence that this choice would also have been that of the young Emile, guided by his reading of Defoe's *Robinson Crusoe*. Emile is still in childhood, before the second birth of adolescence: "Make haste, therefore, to establish him on his island while this is all he needs to make him happy; for the day is at hand, when, if he must still live on his island, he will not be content to live alone, when even the companionship of Man Friday, who is almost disregarded now, will not long suffice."32 The choice of a well-guided child or an adult with the self-knowledge that comes from the experience of one's own life is, in short, without importance or consequence. But it is important not to put this choice in the hands of an adolescent, prey to the vicissitudes of self-esteem.

#### **3. A disappointing apprenticeship: Consciousness of one's own mediocrity**

Robinson and Wilhelm's apprenticeships, on the island or the stage, produce disappointment by making each aware of the inadequacy of his talent when faced with his desires and his own mediocrity. Robinson and Wilhelm, before their apprenticeship to life, dream of themselves as uncommon characters. Robinson, whose head is "filled very early with rambling thoughts,"33 whose "thoughts were so entirely bent upon seeing the world,"34 adds to this the desire to enrich himself in commerce. Wilhelm thinks of himself as different from mediocre characters such as Werner. Both novels tell the story of their heroes' errors and of their consequences.

Robinson cites his "ill fate" which "pushed [him] on now with an obstinacy that nothing could resist" in spite of the "calls from [his] reason and [his] more composed judgment to go home."35 From the very beginning of Goethe's novel, Wilhelm invokes with irony the poem in which he imagined the "Muse of tragic art" and "the personified Commerce": the former, "formed as a queen […], the

31 Cf. Urban 2013.

32 Rousseau 1762.

33 Defoe 1995, 9.

34 Defoe 1995, 12.

35 Defoe 1995, 20.

child of freedom," a "goddess" whose "feeling of her own worth gave her dignity without pride"; the latter, "old housewife, with the distaff in her girdle, the bunch of keys by her side, the spectacles on her nose, ever toiling, ever restless, quarrelsome, and penurious, pitiful and dissatisfied!"36 Wilhelm is the character who best embodies the disappointment that accompanies worldly learning and, especially, self-discovery. As François Jost rightly points out, Wilhelm, more than the world itself, recognizes his place in that world, and is beginning to be able to define himself. 37 His learning produces a recurring doubt about his own talent. After Marianne's supposed betrayal, he attacks "his talent as a poet and actor, with spiteful criticisms on every side"38: "In his labors he could see nothing but a shallow imitation of prescribed forms, without intrinsic worth: he looked on them as stiff school-exercises, destitute of any spark of nature, truth, or inspiration. His poems now appeared nothing more than a monotonous arrangement of syllables, in which the tritest emotions and thoughts were dragged along and kept together by a miserable rhyme […]. With his theatric talent it fared no better. He blamed himself for not having sooner detected the vanity on which alone this pretension had been founded."39 This is the first moment of resignation to "set about devoting his powers with the greatest zeal to the business of trade": "diligent […] on the exchange or in the counting-house, in the saleroom or the warehouses," he carries out correspondence and calculations "with the greatest diligence and zeal," though not "with that warm diligence which to the busy man is its own reward, when he follows with constancy and order the employment he was born for."40 This moment is only the first in a long journey of self-knowledge. In Book VIII, while Jarno explains that the Tower society, which has been secretly guiding his journey since the beginning, chooses those who "felt and recognized the purpose they were born for, and had got enough of practice to proceed along their way with a certain cheerfulness and ease,"41 Wilhelm replies that "what I can, will, or shall do, has been more unknown to me than ever."42

Such ignorance about what he can and shall do is not only the result of doubts about his talent as an actor. Wilhelm has had the opportunity to see the rewards

36 Goethe 2000, 27.

37 Cf. Jost 1969, 105.

38 Goethe 2000, 51.

39 Goethe 2000, 51–52.

40 Goethe 2000, 52.

41 Goethe 2000, 230.

42 Goethe 2000, 230.

that trade and industry can bring. In response to his father's persistent questions about his travels, he produces a description of the state of the country's trade and industry; his imaginary narrative – drawn from documents rather than from his own experience – makes him feel "for the first time, […] how pleasant and how useful it might be to become participator in so many trades and requisitions, and to take a hand in diffusing activity and life into the deepest nooks of the mountains and forests of Europe."43 Wilhelm's slow discovery of the world, neither linear nor cumulative, and the insular episode lived by Robinson, lead both of them to the knowledge of their own desires and means to happiness. Through their apprenticeship to life, both discover themselves as ordinary characters, deprived of true talent or remarkable destiny, but able to cope despite this.

Indeed, their stories are not tragedy or drama. Wilhelm's mistake was to misjudge his abilities and to imagine that he could acquire the talent he lacked. The realization of this error does not signal the end of his hopes for a happy life, but rather their fulfillment. Moreover, if Wilhelm questions the lofty idea of the actor's career and role in society, and his own ability, his experience is salutary and necessary in that it allows him to discover true fulfillment by renouncing the theater. Like Robinson, he is not defeated by his disappointing apprenticeship, but adjusts the representation of himself to the lessons of his experience. This adjustment, as disappointing as it is with regard to his dreams, is not a misfortune. It is quite the opposite, a condition of happiness: happiness on the island for Robinson, for whom "the conversation which employed the hours between Friday and me was such, as made the three years which we lived there together perfectly and completely happy, if any such thing as complete happiness can be formed in a sublunary state"44; happiness for Wilhelm in his marriage with Nathalie, a happiness he "ha[s] not deserved, and which [he] would not change with anything in life."45 Each character, at the end of his lived experience, freed from the confusion that consumed him at the beginning of the novel, confident of himself and his desire, is ready to fully enjoy existence. If "a man is never happy till his vague striving has itself marked out its proper limitation,"46 apprenticeship is the means to knowledge and acceptance of limitations.

Rousseau's treatise on education differs from the two novels in that it never gives us access to Emile's interiority, and only accompanies him to the age when

43 Goethe 2000, 160.

44 Defoe 1995, 221.

45 Goethe 2000, 336.

46 Goethe 2000, 307.

Defoe and Goethe's characters begin their stories. If Goethe's novel is a kind of pre-novel, or preamble, that arms his hero so that he is ready to live the novel of his adult life, Rousseau's treatise still precedes the pre-novel or *Bildungsroman*. Even the marriage of Emile and Sophia differs from that of Wilhelm and Nathalie, since Emile's education and his encounter with Sophia have, at least temporarily, protected him from the storms of passion and trials that will become the subject of Emile's sequel: *Emilius and Sophia.*47

#### **4. Social utility**

The evolution of the characters' perceptions, expectations and choices is not only the result of their growing knowledge of themselves, but also a response to their consideration of social pressure, to an awareness of the role they can and must play to make themselves socially useful. Their choice of profession does not bind them alone. Any activity must find justification in the social utility of its result.

The praise of usefulness is a recurring motif throughout the three works. Defoe shows Robinson's transformation from a character who, before his shipwreck, wanted to become rich, to a new man who soon understands the uselessness of money. Upon finding gold and silver on his wrecked ship, he exclaims: "Oh drug! […] What art thou good for? Thou art not worth to me, no, not the taking off the ground."48 The Crusoe before the shipwreck wanted to make his fortune; the Crusoe of the island no longer cares about anything but his well-being, his productivity, and curses the desire for enrichment that enticed him into travel and subsequent shipwreck. From an economic perspective, this transformation results from a desire for well-being rather than for monetary enrichment.

Paradoxically, it is isolation from human society that allows Robinson to regain a sense of true usefulness. This why he is proposed as a model to Emile, to develop his imagination about material work and train him to make judgments based not on others, but on the true utility of things. This is not to instill in him the false idea that he can dispense with the commerce of his fellow men, but that he might retain, in this very commerce, the desire for well-being and the taste for usefulness that characterize Robinson. This is why agriculture, Robinson's main occupation, is "the earliest and most honourable of arts," "the earliest, the most honest of trades, and more useful than all the rest, and therefore more honourable for those who practise it."49 As Arnaud Berthoud writes, all of Emile's

47 Cf. Rousseau 1783.

48 Defoe 1995, 62.

49 Rousseau 1762.

thoughts are directed by his preceptor towards concern for his well-being and "by the instrumentation of what surrounds him."50

For Wilhelm, the encounter with Theresa and then Nathalie is an opportunity to consider the pleasure of satisfying the needs of others. Nathalie expresses it forcefully: "From my youth upwards, I can recollect no livelier feeling than that I was constantly observing people's wants and had an irresistible desire to make them up. […] The charms of inanimate nature, to which so many persons are exceedingly susceptible, had no effect upon me; the charms of art, if possible, had less. My most delightful occupation was and is, when a deficiency, a want appeared before me anywhere, to set about devising a supply, a remedy, a help for it."51

However, while usefulness is indispensable, it is not the only quality to take into consideration. Rousseau chose for Emile the carpenter's trade, which is not only clean and useful, but "calls for skill and industry, and while fashioning articles for everyday use, there is scope for elegance and taste."52 Wilhelm discusses at length the comparative importance of the beautiful and the useful. He regrets being a simple burgher who "must cultivate some single gifts in order to be useful, and it is beforehand settled, that in his manner of existence there is no harmony, and can be none, since he is bound to make himself of use in one department, and so has to relinquish all the others."53 The renunciation of primary ambitions is not, however, a renunciation of the beautiful in favor of the useful. It leads to a reconsideration of the conflict between beauty and usefulness because the category of social utility, which will guide his choice to become a surgeon, cannot be enough. As Jarno says: "all […] lies in man, and must be cultivated: yet not in one, but in many. Every gift is valuable, and ought to be unfolded. When one encourages the beautiful alone, and another encourages the useful alone, it takes them both to form a man. The useful encourages itself; for the multitude produce it, and no one can dispense with it: the beautiful must be encouraged; for few can set it forth, and many need it."54 The multiple human dispositions must not be sacrificed to the useful. But also, adds the *abbé*, "Whoever aims at doing or enjoying all and everything with his entire nature; whoever tries to link together

50 Berthoud 2007, 18.

51 Goethe 2000, 292–293.

52 Rousseau 1921, 164.

53 Goethe 2000, 168.

54 Goethe 2000, 306.

all that is without him by such a species of enjoyment, will only lose his time in efforts that can never be successful."55

Wilhelm's early youth, as well as Robinson's, was a rebellion against the social demands expressed by paternal injunctions. The discovery of the world – the natural world of the island for Robinson, the social world for Wilhelm – offers them the opportunity to find a place in this world. They are no longer locked into the painful alternative that was offered to them at the beginning of the narration: to submit to orders that thwart their deepest desires, or to rebel. A third way is open: to make the desires of others their own, finding in a socially useful activity the place of their own satisfaction.

# **5. Conclusion**

Contemporary economic theory makes the notion of human capital the key to understanding the individual choices involved in training and choosing a trade. Connected to this notion, but different, Rousseau's treatise and Defoe and Goethe's novels show how our choices on education, training and profession matter, or do not matter. They matter not only in terms of return on investment, but because they also build the character's representation of himself and the role he can play in society. This representation may be disappointing. Becoming an economic agent means learning how to cope with this disappointment and to build another representation, one in which taking part in useful activities is not the renunciation of one's own desire. This, at least as important as the acquisition of skills, is what the three characters, Robinson, Emile and Wilhelm, learn through their adventures, education and apprenticeship.

# **Bibliography**

Defoe, Daniel. *Robinson Crusoe* [1719]. Philadelphia, PA: Running Press, 1995

55 Goethe 2000, 317.

# Christian von Tschilschke

# **Between State-Managed Reforms and Private Utopia: The Entrepreneurial Projects of Pablo de Olavide**

**Abstract** If we look for prefigurations of modern capitalist entrepreneurship in 18th-century Spain, Pablo Antonio José de Olavide y Jáuregui (1725–1803) would perhaps appear to be one of its most emblematic, and probably best-known incarnations outside of Spain. However, in order to determine Olavide's new enlightened economic habitus and the particular nature of his "atopian" entrepreneurship, which has not yet found its "place" in the Spanish society of the time, as I will argue, this paper concentrates primarily on the transformations and continuities of the texts that prepared and accompanied his famous reform project of the colonization of the Sierra Morena (1766–1767), the *Fuero de Población* (1767), and the *Informe sobre la ley agraria* (1768), as well as the utopian parts of his widely read Christian treatise *El Evangelio en triunfo o historia de un filósofo desengañado* (1797–1798), which he composed shortly before his death.

**Keywords:** Olavide, entrepreneurship, agrarian reform, inner colonization, self-interest, biopolitics, Christian utopia

### **1. The atopia of the entrepreneur in 18th-century Spain**

Whereas historical figures such as the Basque businessman, erudite humanist and politician Juan de Goyeneche y Gastón (1656–1735), one of the representatives of the early Spanish reformism of the 18th century, are not so well known to a wider audience today,1 Pablo Antonio José de Olavide y Jáuregui, or Pablo de Olavide for short, to whom this contribution is devoted, is in contrast one of the most emblematic and best-known Spanish reformers of the Age of Enlightenment, probably even outside Spain.

Choosing a figure as famous as Olavide for the purpose of characterizing him as a Spanish "protagonist of production," however, involves certain advantages and disadvantages. To be sure, one of the biggest advantages is that the work and endeavors of Olavide seem to coincide with the scope and the limits of the Spanish Reform movement itself, as has already been stated, for instance, about Benito Jerónimo Feijoo for the first half of the 18th century. 2 The disadvantage

1 On Goyeneche cf. Witthaus in this volume.

2 Cf. Stiffoni 1986, 61–62.

probably is that focusing once more on this particularly brilliant, talented, energetic, entrepreneurial and dazzling figure diverts the attention from other reformers of the second or third rank, such as perhaps Juan de Goyeneche, and might continue thus to contribute to an antiquated and stereotyped idea of the Spanish Enlightenment.

So what makes Olavide such an outstanding figure?3 At least five things need to be mentioned here. First, his origin. Olavide was a so-called "indiano," a remigrant from the Latin American colonies. He was born in 1725 in Lima, the capital of the Viceroyalty of Peru, and came to Spain in 1752 at the age of 27, impelled by juridical prosecution. In Spain, his American provenance proved to be significant in two ways: for quickly being considered an expert in questions of colonization and, according to historians, for the freshness, the impartiality and the "virginal sentido de lo nuevo" ("virginal sense of the new." My trans.)4 with which he set about the Herculean reform task he was later asked to perform by the Spanish government against the resistance of the ruling elites. 5

Second, his projects. Over a span of ten years, between 1766 and 1776, Olavide held several public offices, first in Madrid and then in Sevilla, that served to establish his reputation as an effective and resolute reformer in Spain and abroad. In this period he carried out reforms in fields as diverse as the municipal treasury, infrastructure, welfare assistance, the theater, the educational system and, above all, the foundation of forty new settlements in the deserted and fallow areas of Andalusia and the Sierra Morena, where he succeeded in placing 6,000 settlers from Germany and other countries. 6 In Olavide's own words, these "Nuevas Poblaciones" ("New Settlements") were conceived as a model for the rest of Spain "no sólo para la buena agricultura, sino también para la industria,

3 On Olavide's life and work, cf. mainly the monographs by Defourneaux 1959; Aguilar Piñal 1966; Capel 1970; Perdices Blas 1993 and Marchena Fernández 2001 as well as the articles by Dufour 1966 and Perdices Blas 2003.

4 Núñez 1987, XI. Cf. also Aguilar Piñal 1969, 23 and Capel 1970, 5.

5 I address the question of the extent to which Olavide's acting in metropolitan Spain was influenced by his colonial experience in more detail in Tschilschke 2017. For Olavide's status as "criollo" and "indiano" cf. Neal 2017, 13–15.

6 On Olavide's reform projects beyond the monographs already mentioned, cf. Aguilar 1974; Alcázar Molina 1927, 1930; Avilés Fernández / Sena Medina 1988, 1991; Bernaldo de Quiros 1986; Caro Baroja 1952; Chiareno 1986; Merchán 1996; Oliveras Samitier 1998; Palacio Atard 1962, 1989, 2006, 103–122; Pérez Fernández 2018; Pérez Fernández / Hamer Flores 2020; Reese 2022; Vázquez Lesmes 1979; Vicens Vives 1972, 446–447.

actividad y trabajo de sus naturales" ("not only for good agriculture, but also for the industry, activity and labor of its people." My trans.). 7

Third, the fact that he was persecuted and convicted by the Inquisition. Olavide's ambitious colonization project and his activities as superintendent of the New Settlements came to a sudden end when he was arrested in Madrid and accused of heresy by the Holy Inquisition in 1776. Two years later, he was sentenced to lifelong seclusion in a monastery in a spectacular public propaganda trial. To any observer, it was clear that the Inquisition wished to make an example of him. In the 18th century, Olavide was therefore considered throughout Europe as "la víctima por antonomasia de la Inquisición" ("the victim of the Inquisition par excellence"). 8

Fourth, his international reputation. The huge echo that Olavide's punishment evoked in the whole of Europe has mainly to do with his previous trips to France: Since 1757 he had become acquainted with many major figures of the Enlightenment, like Voltaire, Diderot and D'Alembert. It was his first biographer, Denis Diderot, who in 1779 laid the basis for the myth of Olavide as a scapegoat of the church and a great reformer, a myth that already surrounded him during his lifetime and created his posthumous fame. 9 What's more, the New Settlements in Andalusia rapidly turned into an attraction for international travelers from England, France, Germany and Italy, including Giacomo Casanova, who reports on his visit there in 1768, in his posthumous *Histoire de ma vie* ("*History of My Life*"). 10

Fifth, Olavide's so-called "conversion." After two years of detention in Spain, Olavide managed to escape to France. Under the impression of the excesses of the French Revolution he began to write a monumental apology of Christianity

7 Letter to Miguel de Múzquiz, September 5, 1774, quoted from Perdices Blas 2003, 17.

8 Dufour 1988, 5.

9 Cf. Denis Diderot "Don Pablo Olavidès. Précis historique, rédigé sur des mémoires fournis par un espagnol" (about 1779; "Don Pablo Olavidès. Historical précis, written according to memories provided by a Spaniard." My trans.). For the fabrication of the later myth of Olavide, cf. Núñez 1987, XXVII–XXXIV and Marchena Fernández 2001, 86–92, in which, however, no mention is made of the historical novel *Goya oder Der arge Weg der Erkenntnis* (1951; "*This is the Hour*," 1956) by the German writer Lion Feuchtwanger (1884–1958) who, in the third chapter of the second part, devotes some very suggestive pages to Olavide and the proceedings that were attempted against him.

10 The numerous literary and travelers' testimonies, both Spanish and foreign, about the "Nuevas Poblaciones" are studied, among others, in Alcázar Molina 1930, 99–103; Capel 1970, 113–134 and Chiareno 1986.

in four volumes, *El Evangelio en triunfo o historia de un filósofo desengañado* ("*The Gospel of Triumph, or the story of a disenchanted philosopher*"), which would become his most successful work. Anonymously published in Valencia in 1797, it was soon translated into English, German, Italian, Portuguese and Russian, and turned out to be one of the greatest bestsellers of the 19th century. To Olavide "la más singular apologia de la religión católica que nunca haya sido escrita" ("the most original apology of the Catholic religion ever written." My trans.)11 allowed him to return to Spain, where he died in 1803.

Despite this short outline of Olavide's life and work, I am not specifically interested in his biography here, even though it might be "la más altamente novelesca de todo el XVIII español" ("one of the most novelesque of all the Spanish 18th century." My trans.). 12 I would prefer to concentrate on the particular nature of the entrepreneurship which is so obviously at work in his reforming practices and writings. For this purpose, I will compare the continuities and transformations between the texts related to the colonization of the Sierra Morena and the utopian parts that, quite surprisingly, constitute the fourth volume of his Christian treatise. In doing so, we have to keep in mind that the relationship between reform and utopia is dialectic in the sense that reforms are always inspired by an ideal of better practice, and utopia is often conceived with the intent to inspire reforms.

So, if we consider first the pragmatic texts of the 1760s and then the extensive apology he composed shortly before his death, it very quickly becomes obvious that his reforming ideas and measures astonishingly did not change significantly over the years, whereas their pragmatic and conceptual framings indeed did alter: from reform to utopia, and from the state as an agent to the individual as the center of action. But between these two positions one place remains empty: the place of the modern private entrepreneur. We might call this the "atopiaˮ, the placelessness of the entrepreneur in Olavide. Even if many traits of modern entrepreneurship, understood emphatically as an act of "creative destruction"13 that recombines natural, human, and financial resources in an innovative way, always willing to take risks, are already present in Olavide's thinking and acting, this new habitus still lacks a proper place in the Spanish society of the 18th century.

11 Dufour 1988, 5. On the successful commercialization of the book, cf. Dufour 2003.

12 Aguilar Piñal 1969, 20.

13 The term was coined by Werner Sombart ("schöpferische Zerstörung") and popularized by Joseph A. Schumpeter. Cf. Schumpeter 1942, 80–86.

#### **2. Olavide's commitment to state-managed reforms**

Olavide's personal support of state-managed reforms is nowhere more evident than in the colonization of the Sierra Morena and the southern parts of Andalusia. This prototypical Enlightenment project, managed by Olavide by order of King Charles III in June of 1767, came along with a series of instructive documents: a report written by Olavide about a project to establish settlements in Southern America, critical for choosing Andalusia; the *Informe sobre el proyecto de colonización de Puerto Rico y América del Sur* (1766, "*Report on the Colonization Project of Puerto Rico and South America*." My trans.); a legislative code of 79 paragraphs designed to regulate the social and economic life of the settlers to the smallest detail, the *Fuero de Población* (1767, "*Population Charter.*" My trans.); the correspondence between Olavide and his supervisor, the Minister of Finance Miguel de Múzquiz y Goyeneche; and, most notably, a report about planned reforms in the agricultural sector, elaborated by Olavide and a team of experts, presented in 1768: the *Informe sobre la ley agraria* ("*Agrarian Law Report*." My trans.).

As a new agricultural policy was considered decisive for growth, prosperity, and the happiness of the nation, the report relied mainly on the physiocratic ideas shared by most supporters of the Bourbon reform policies of the era, like Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes (1732–1802) and Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos (1744–1811). This did not mean that the industrial and commercial sectors were to be neglected. 14 However, they were to remain subordinate to agriculture as the principal source of wealth for the state. Before becoming a politician, Olavide had already been a successful businessman who defended domestic free trade and the concept of competition. 15 In his writings about the colonization project, these ideas reappear adapted to the rural sector. According to Olavide, agricultural production was to be complemented by factories and by what Olavide's friend Campomanes, in his widely read essay *Discurso sobre el fomento de la industria popular* ("*Treatise on the Promotion of Popular Industry.*" My trans.), published in 1774, classified as "industria popular" ("popular industry." My trans.), that is home-based textile production.

Discussing Olavide's approach to reforming the rural sector, one should not forget that he always acted as a loyal agent of the absolute monarchy and never challenged the estate-based society of his epoch. At the same time, he propagated

14 Perdices Blas therefore considers the designation "agrarista" ("agraristic." My trans.) more appropriate than "physiocratic" (Perdices Blas 2000, 275).

15 Cf. Perdices Blas 2003, 15–17.

and promoted a fundamental shift in mindset towards capitalist principles. By subordinating all aspects of human life to the economic imperatives of rationalization and the maximization of productivity – for the benefit of the state and the nation – he must inevitably have come into conflict with religious traditions and the Church's claim to power, as his indictment by the Inquisition shows.

Instead of elaborating on the technical, economic, and administrative details of Olavide's reform endeavor, in the following I would prefer to focus on three aspects that seem characteristic of this mentality shift: the plea for private property and self-interest, the defense of biopolitical measures, and the approval of female labor.

The very basis of Olavide's reform project, as he develops it in his *Informe sobre la ley agraria*, is the distribution of equally large parcels of uncultivated land to families of settlers and the intention to provide them with the material, equipment, and skills to cultivate this land independently. Of course, the principal purpose of this measure was to combat one of the severest problems of the Spanish economy: the neglect of large estates by the Church and other great landowners. It was planned to give the new settlers the opportunity to sell their goods on the market and to reinvest the gains in their properties. The free "flujo de compras y ventas" ("flow of purchases and sales")16 seemed vital to Olavide to keep the land in good condition. For him, as for other Spanish Enlightenment thinkers, the motor of all action was self-interest, the basic idea of economic liberalism. In his report the word "interés" ("interest") appears sixteen times, the collocation "propio interés" ("self-interest") seven times, and "estímulo" ("incentive") four times. According to Olavide, "el interés del propietario, del colono y del Estado es que la tierra produzca todo lo posible" ("the interest of the landowner, the colonist and the State is that the land produces a maximum." All my trans.). 17

Olavide's second obsession is biopolitics. It is not in the least surprising that the Spanish historian Francisco Vázquez García dedicated a whole chapter of his study about the emergence of biopolitics in Spain, *La invención del racismo. Nacimiento de la biopolítica en España, 1600–1940* (2009; "*The Invention of Racism. Birth of Biopolitics in Spain, 1600–1940.*" My trans.) to the case of the New Settlements in the Sierra Morena, whose general objectives and disciplinary mechanisms he analyzes in detail. In his eyes, they constitute "un verdadero paradigma de normalización disciplinaria en el gobierno de una población" ("a

16 Olavide 1987, 525.

17 Olavide 1987, 486.

real paradigm of the disciplinary normalization in the governing of a population." My trans.). 18 If we follow Michel Foucault, biopolitics always obey the economic logic of capitalism. In fact, Olavide views the settlers as a raw material and intends to get the maximum benefit out of them. The specific biopolitical dimension of the project becomes apparent in a variety of aspects, beginning with the spatial division and distribution of the population in places "sanos, bien ventilados, sin aguas estadizas que ocasionen intemperies" ("healthy, well ventilated, without stagnant water that causes bad climate." My trans.) and situated near the fields where they work, so that they do not lose time, as required by Articles V and VII of the *Fuero de Población*. 19

Further aspects include the characteristics by which colonists were selected. In fact, this was done according to three criteria, as summarized by Luis Perdices Blas: "El primero fue el religioso, pues todos debían ser católicos. El segundo, el económico: solo se admitía a agricultores y artesanos que ejercieran oficios útiles. El tercero, y último, el biológico: se regulaban las edades de los admitidos" ("The first was religious, since everyone had to be Catholic. The second was economic: only farmers and artisans who exercised useful trades were allowed. The third, and last, was biological: the ages of those admitted were regulated"). 20 In addition to German, Swiss, Savoyard and Flemish foreigners, Spaniards were also admitted on the condition that they did not come from neighboring regions. The real reason for this requirement was surely the intention to create a "new man," cut off from the determining roots of his territory and mentality, "partiendo de cero" ("starting from scratch")21 in order to have "un personal libre de las ideas tradicionales en España en la sociedad rural, y por tanto, fácil de modelar conforme a los preceptos ideales que inspiraban tan ambicioso proyecto, cuyas experiencias servirían en su caso para ser trasplantadas a las demás regiones de la Península" ("a personnel free of the traditional ideas in Spain in rural society, and therefore, easy to mold according to the ideal precepts

18 Vázquez García 2009, 44.

19 The Royal Decree was signed on June 25, 1767 and published on July 5, 1767. A facsimile of the text can be found on the website of the Ministry of Culture (URL: www.mcu.es/ archivos/lhe/servlets/VisorServlet.jsp?cod=003295) or the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (URL: https://ddd.uab.cat/pub/pragmatiques/pragmatiques\_273.pdf). All further citations refer to this source. All translations are mine. Its author was Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes, assisted by Pablo de Olavide (cf. Perdices Blas 1995, 181). For an annotated summary cf. Capel 1970, 83–99.

20 Perdices Blas 1995, 191.

21 Vázquez García 2009, 44.

that inspired such an ambitious project, whose experiences would serve in their case to be transplanted to the other regions of the Peninsula"). 22

In accordance with article XXVIII of the *Fuero*, in which the superintendent was allowed to "promover casamientos de los nuevos Pobladores con Españoles de ambos sexos respectivamente; para incorporarles más fácilmente en el cuerpo de la Nación" ("promote marriages of the new settlers with Spaniards of both sexes respectively; to incorporate them more easily into the body of the Nation"), Olavide defended an active marriage policy of unions between foreigners and Spaniards in order to create a homogeneous national body. As can be deduced from the accusations made against Olavide before the Holy Office in Cordoba, he apparently attributed a higher value to procreation and population increase than to the dogmas of the Catholic Church. This explains the reproaches made against him by the German Capuchin friar Fray Romualdo de Friburgo in 1775, who denounced him before the Inquisition, among others, for not giving due importance to the sixth commandment ("You shall not commit adultery"), for openly criticizing the celibacy of the ecclesiastics and for organizing public dances and masked balls. 23

The state assistance offered to the population covers all aspects of collective and individual life: health and hygiene (hospitals and apothecaries are created), education (schools and public libraries are opened), the organization of leisure time (public dances are held on holidays in the main square), and even food (people are guaranteed sufficient food and do not drink too much alcohol). Although in article LXXIV it is decreed that "todos los niños han de ir à las Escuelas de primeras letras" ("all the children must go to the elementary schools"), in the following article they are denied all access to higher education: "No habrà Estudios de Gramatica en todas estas nuevas *Poblaciones*; y mucho menos de otras Facultades mayores, en observancia de lo dispuesto en la *Ley del Reyno*, que con razón les prohibe en Lugares de esta naturaleza; cuyos moradores deben estar destinados à la labranza, cría de ganados, y à las artes mecánicas, como nervio de la fuerza de un Estado" ("There will be no Studies of Grammar in all these new *Populations*; and much less of other major Faculties, in observance of the provisions of the *Law of the Kingdom*, which rightly prohibits them in Places of this nature; whose inhabitants must be destined to farming, cattle breeding, and the mechanical arts, as the nerve of the strength of a State"). All settlers who do

22 Lohmann Villena 1964, 82.

23 For more details see Defourneaux 1959, 327–329; 352–353 and Perdices Blas 1995, 347–361; 383–391.

not abide by the regulations imposed on them by the Charter are subject to harsh disciplinary sanctions, as specified in article LIV: "En el termino de dos años, si no se puede lograr antes, debe tener cada Vecino corriente su suerte y habitacion; y no haciendolo, ò notandose abandono en su conducta, se le reputarà en la clase de vago, y quedarà en el arbitrio del Superintendente de las Poblaciones, segun las circunstancias, aplicarle al servicio Militar, à la Marina, ò otro conveniente, ò prorrogar el termino, si mediare justa y no afectada causa." ("In the term of two years, if it cannot be achieved before, each Neighbor must have his own current lot and habitation; and not doing so, or showing abandonment in his conduct, he will be considered in the class of vagrant, and it will be at the discretion of the Superintendent of the Populations, according to the circumstances, to remand him to Military, the Navy, or other convenient service, or to extend the term, if there is just and unaffected cause." My trans.). 24

Another issue that attracted Olavide's attention was female labor. In line with the views of other reformers such as Jovellanos and Campomanes, Olavide was displeased with a situation where the majority of the population – in fact he refers to women and boys – is idle and unproductive. Therefore, he insisted that women should work in factories or make handicrafts at home, always appropriate to their sex like spinning, stitching or weaving – the already mentioned "industria popular."25 In a letter to Miguel de Múzquiz he writes in October 1773: "Nada me ha parecido tan importante como excitar los colonos y colonas a la aplicación. Gimo con dolor de ver que la ociosidad es la ruina de estas Andalucías, y me repugna la destructora costumbre que observo en ellas de que por razón de Estado, no han de trabajar las mujeres, teniendo las ideas tan corrompidas en esta parte que tiene por oprobio la honesta aplicación y por decoro de su sexo la ociosidad." ("Nothing seemed so important to me as to encourage the settlers to be industrious. I groan with pain when I see that idleness is the ruin of these Andalusians, and I am disgusted by the destructive habit I observe there, that for reasons of state women are not permitted to work, their ideas being so corrupted in this area that honest application is a disgrace and idleness is the decorum of their sex." My trans.). 26

24 Cf. also Lera García 1988, 53–54.

25 As to Jovellanos's opinion of women's inclusion into the workforce, cf. Gies in this volume.

26 Cf. URL: https://frasaji3.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/3c2aa-parte.pdf. Accessed February 20, 2022. Regarding Olavide's attention to the situation of women see also Perdices Blas 1995, 102–105.

#### **3. Olavide's private utopia**

Twenty years after the failure of the project to colonize Andalusia – or at least, its partial failure, because some of the settlements still exist today – Olavide returned once again to his earlier ideas, though on fundamentally other terms and conditions. While the reform project had soon proven to be utopian in the trivial sense of the word as "desirable but impracticable," the 1700-page Christian treatise *El Evangelio en triunfo o historia de un filósofo desengañado*, written for the most part at the Château de Cheverny during his stay in France and published in 1797–1798, which he based on the model of the epistolary novel, was a utopia in a more specific way, especially the fourth volume. 27

In the last six letters of this volume, the "apología racional del cristianismo" ("rational apology of Christianity." My trans.),28 the exemplary story of the conversion to Christianity by the disenchanted philosopher protagonist, who resembles Olavide himself, is replaced by the correspondence between two other persons, Mariano, a close collaborator of the philosopher, and his friend Antonio, who is traveling abroad. In the letters which Mariano addresses to Antonio, corresponding to letters XXXVI–XLI (and last) of *El Evangelio en triunfo*, the same ideas about education, public assistance and agriculture reappear, barely modified, but now fictionalized, that Olavide had first developed during his time as intendant of Sevilla and superintendent of the New Settlements. 29

Looking only at the parts about agriculture, we actually find his old concepts: private property, the stimulating effects of self-interest, biopolitical questions from the proper distribution of the population to questions of nutrition, as well as the need for women and young people to do useful work. Thus, Mariano, as the mouthpiece of his friend the philosopher, insists: "La tierra está dividida en pequeñas propiedades, cada propietario o cada arrendador tiene la suya" ("The land is divided into small properties, each owner or lessor has his own"). 30 "Premios y ventajas" ("rewards and

27 On the influence of Olavide's experiences in France on *El Evangelio en triunfo* cf. Carrasco Monsalve 2007; on the utopian character of the fourth volume cf. Dufour 1985, 1990; and on its novelistic features cf. Dufour 1995. On the entire book, cf. Gómez Urdáñez 2004 and Rodrigo Mancho / Pérez Pachco 2017.

28 Aguilar Piñal 1969, 42.

29 Gérard Dufour speaks in this regard of "una total fidelidad a sus ideas de antaño" ("a total fidelity to his former ideas." My trans. Dufour 1988, 19). A more detailed comparison between the socio-economic reform projects and *El Evangelio en triunfo* can be found in Almanza-Gálvez 2015.

30 Olavide 2004, 269.

benefits")31 should encourage the implementation of reforms. The field workers were supposed to live as close as possible to their fields, so as not to lose time on the way to work and to escape the temptation to idleness that would await the father of the family in the village: "La distancia le quita la facilidad y la tentacion de ir a la taberna" ("The distance takes away the ease and temptation to go to the tavern"). 32 The desirable participation of women and children in field work is also easier to achieve in this way, so that in the end "[t]oda la familia toma el gusto y la inteligencia de los trabajos del campo" ("the whole family takes the taste and the understanding of the works of the field." All my trans.)33 – to name just a few examples.

But moving from reality to fiction and from reformism to utopianism is not the only change in Olavide's program. There is also a stronger influence of Christian morality. This becomes particularly clear when Mariano / the philosopher points out that the redistribution of land should not only increase productivity, but also support and protect the poor laborers against the rich stock farmers, of whom he says: "son como los vampiros, que se chupan la substancia pública" ("they are like vampires that suck up the public substance"). 34 For himself he denies any interest in generating business profits. Nevertheless, he is well aware of the fact that charity in the long run brings a return for himself and the community. The utilitarian aspect of charity is evident, among other things, in the fact that he deliberately keeps the levies he collects from the settlers low in order to reward them for their efforts: "mi ánimo no es hacer el negocio de un traficante, que quiero imprimir a esta operación el carácter de beneficencia, y que es menester ahora alentar a los colonos en un negocio en que no conocen todavía sus grandes ventajas" ("my intention is not to do the business of a dealer, that I want to give this operation the character of charity and that it is now necessary to encourage the settlers in a business in which they do not yet know the great advantages." My trans.). 35

The most important difference, though, is, that the whole project is now individualized. It seems as if the reformer Olavide, after his disappointing experiences in Spain and with the French Revolution, had finally lost confidence, as Perdices Blas points out, "en que el Estado comience a realizar las reformas y

31 Olavide 2004, 269.

32 Olavide 2004, 275.

33 Olavide 2004, 275.

34 Olavide 2004, 269.

35 Olavide 2004, 277.

dé ejemplo" ("in the faculty of the state to initiate reforms and to set an example." My trans.). 36 He now places all his hopes on private initiative and individual commitment. The perfect incarnation of all this is the figure of the disenchanted philosopher. The way he transforms his own village should serve as a best practice for a future society.

## **4. Conclusion**

In conclusion, it can be said that the practical initiatives and theoretical writings of Pablo de Olavide are characterized by the coexistence and sometimes surprising combination of traditional and innovative features. This is true for the period of his life in which he acted as a state reformer in Madrid, Sevilla and Andalusia, as well as the period when he created his private utopia in French exile by the means of literature. On the one hand, he believes in the power of the state and the absolute monarchy, in the healing truth of (Catholic) Christianity and Plato's paternalistic concept of the philosopher as a leader, and on the other hand he stands for the performance of the individual, the stimulating power of self-interest, rational, future-oriented planning and engaging in risky activities. So, what we can observe in the example of Olavide is that even though some essential features of the modern capitalist entrepreneur are already there, in Spain in the second half of the 18th century they have obviously not yet merged into a social figure of its own. This may be one of the specific limitations of the epoch in Spain mentioned at the beginning.

# **Bibliography**

36 Perdices Blas 1995, 474. Perdices Blas also brings up the idea that Olavide possibly read Adam Smith's *The Wealth of Nations* (1776) but admits that there is no clear evidence for that (cf. Perdices Blas 1995, 477–478).

*Actas del coloquio celebrado en la Casa de Velázquez*. Madrid: Casa de Velázquez / Universidad Complutense, 1990, 73–78.

**Section 3 Female Protagonists of Production**

# David T. Gies

# **Two Women, Two Ways: Economy and Theater in Enlightenment Spain**

**Abstract** If the theater in 18th-century Spain offers numerous examples of women who squander money and waste resources on silly pastimes such as fashion, extravagant hairdos and jewelry, or in frivolous activities such as dance and shopping, we see very few examples of women who work, or women who have some control over the disbursement of funds. The economy was considered to be a masculine endeavor in which women were rarely included. Representations of domestic work – work that was naturally not compensated – were of course frequent, but that work was always marked as feminine and associated with concepts such as honor, abnegation, or family duty. However, two examples from the 18th-century repertory – *La industriosa madrileña y el fabricante de Olot, o Los efectos de la aplicación* (1790), by Francisco Durán, and *La familia a la moda* (1805), by María Rosa Gálvez – reveal cracks in this closed system, and might suggest that by the end of the 18th century some (few) men and some (few) women were beginning to recognize, and encourage, a feminine protagonism in the economic sphere.

**Keywords:** Durán, Gálvez, work, economy, women, Enlightenment

### **1. Introduction: Women and the economy**

While Spanish 18th-century theater is replete with examples of women who waste money and squander resources on frivolities such as fashion, hairdos, jewelry or silly pastimes including shopping and dance, we have very few depictions of women who work, or of women who have some say in the control and disbursement of funds. 1 As we have learned from Esther Schomacher's

1 Cf. La Force 1965, 100–101: "While guilds held journeymen and apprentices in near bondage for most of the century, they were loath to accept women in their ranks. They limited employment to men in many trades, or gave them preference in others. As long as male silk twisters were unemployed at Barcelona, for example, their guild denied employment to women. Charles III began the assault on such discrimination when he abolished all guild rules that withheld employment from women in trades compatible with their sex and strength on January 12, 1779. But royal proclamations spread slowly through Spain, and frequently provincial authorities even formulated policies in opposition to them. This happened on January 16, 1784, when the Special Council of Commerce of Barcelona forbade women to spin cotton in many villages

contribution,2 in Italy, Goldoni's *La locandiera* ("*The Mistress of the Inn.*" My trans.) might provide us with a one-off look at a woman engaged in the hotel business, while in Spain, we get rare glimpses of female characters engaged in trade in Ramón de la Cruz's *Las escofieteras* (1773) ("*The Fashionable Dressmakers.*" My trans.) or José López Sedano's *La posadera feliz* (1779) ("*The Happy Inkeeper.*" My trans.), to cite just a few examples. These are anomalies.

It is hard to counter the notion that the economy was generally considered to be a masculine enterprise, one in which women participated rarely, if at all. In many cases the woman became merely the face of the business, which was actually controlled by a husband, father, or brother. Depictions of domestic work, which of course went uncompensated, appear with some frequency, but domestic work, always coded as feminine, normally appeared associated with concepts such as honor, abnegation, child-rearing, or familial duty. Economic agency for the most part was still withheld from most women. Yet two examples from the 18th-century theater repertory – Francisco Durán's *La industriosa madrileña y el fabricante de Olot, o Los efectos de la aplicación* (1790) and María Rosa Gálvez *La familia a la moda* (1805) – reveal cracks in this closed system. While neither of these plays can lay claim to revolutionary status, a close look at them might suggest that by the end of the 18th century, some (few) men and some (few) women were beginning to recognize, and push for, the emergence of female agency in the economic sphere.

We need not rehearse here the obvious fact that "enlightened" economic matters were handled nearly exclusively by men. The mere title of the first chapter of David Ringrose's study of the economy of Carlos III – *Economics in Eighteenth-Century Spain: Ideas and Men* (1962) – points toward that gendered reality. When Jovellanos noted in his *Elogio de Carlos III* that "la nación empieza a tener economistas" ("the nation is beginning to have economists." My trans.),3 those economists were,

3 Cited in Witthaus 2018, 320.

of Catalonia. The women complained bitterly, for they earned more and worked less by spinning cotton rather than wool. Setting aside this ruling on January 2, 1784, the General Council of Commerce and Money allowed women to spin materials of their choice. Two months later, Charles III permitted all women to Spain to determine their occupations, provided they chose occupations compatible with their sex, decency, and strength." Cf. also Castro Monsalve 1991, Kowaleski-Wallace 1997, Lewis 2010, Lope 1992, and Strosetzki 2018.

2 Cf. the article of Esther Schomacher in this volume.

invariably, men. 4 Women consumed wealth, but they did not generate or control it. 5

### **2. Francisco Durán,** *La industriosa madrileña* **(1790)**

When Francisco Durán – most famously remembered as the father of Agustín Durán, whose *Discurso* of 1828 has been credited with intensifying the debate over Romanticism in Spain6 – decided to tackle the issue of industry in the Catalan town of Olot (and mix in a healthy dose of transvestism, sibling rivalry, and marriage conflict), he seemed to be taking up the charge issued in the *Real Cédula* of 1783, whose intent was, in the words of María Jesús García Garrosa, "de difundir mediante el teatro la idea de que cualquier trabajo es honesto, evitar el desprestigio de la actividad manual y lograr así el avance económico mediante un aumento de la productividad" ("to spread via theater the idea that any work is honest, to avoid the loss of prestige that manual labor suffers and thus to achieve economic advancement by means of an increase in productivity." My trans.). 7 Indeed, he did spread that idea, as a review in the *Memorial Literario* asserts:

4 Jovellanos argued for the inclusion of women into the workforce, as long as the jobs they took were "propios de su sexo" ("appropriate to their sex." My trans.), although he did confess that "Nosotros fuimos los que contra el designio de la Providencia, las hicimos débiles y delicadas. Acostumbrados a mirarlas como nacidas solamente para nuestro placer, las hemos separado con estudio de todas las profesiones activas, las hemos encerrado, las hemos hecho ociosas, y al cabo hemos unido a la idea de su existencia una idea de debilidad y flaqueza, que la educación y la costumbre han arraigado más y más cada día en nuestro espíritu" ("Informe" 1785, 33). ("We were the ones who, against Providence's design, make them weak and delicate. Accustomed as we were to seeing them as having been born only for our pleasure, we have separated them from all active professions, we have locked them up, we have made them lazy, and in the end we have subscribed to the idea of their existence as a debility and a weakness, that education and custom have rooted more and more each day into our spirit." My trans.) Cf. also Elorza 1968.

7 García Garrosa 1993, 673. "La cédula de [18 marzo] 1783 representa la culminación de una larga campaña para elevar la estimación del trabajo en la España del siglo XVIII" (Callahan 1964, 71–72). Durán's play provoked some reaction in the contemporary press, as Joaquín Álvarez Barrientos indicates: "…ni que se representaran robos como en *La industriosa madrileña*, en la que, como protesta 'del pueblo feliz', no se dejó acabar la función, lo que motivó un bando, publicado en el *Memorial Literario* de marzo de 1790, en el que se prohibía a los concurrentes los 'movimientos, gritos y palabras que puedan ofender la decencia, el buen modo, sosiego y diversión de los circunstantes', bajo pena de

Las sentencias y buenas máximas de industria y comercio están sembradas oportunamente por toda la acción. El asunto elegido por el autor no podía ser más a propósito en un tiempo en que se protegen tanto las artes y se combaten tanto las preocupaciones que alimentaban la ociosidad y desterraban la aplicación. 8

("The judgments and good maxims of industry and commerce are appropriately sprinkled throughout the plot. The subject chosen by the author could not be more appropriate in a time when arts are so protected and concerns that fed laziness and fought against hard work are so embattled." My trans.)

Yet Durán also inscribed into his play some thoughtful, if subtle, meditations on gender and agency. We look in vain for a proto-feminist manifesto or an outright declaration of the rights of a full-fledged *femina oeconomica*, to use Christian von Tschilschke's inspired term*.* 9 Still, Durán was capable of suggesting a new model of feminine behavior, although not the one of typical womanhood that we might have expected. 10

Doña Cecilia de Aragón y Palanzuela, the "industriosa madrileña" of the play's title, weaves cloth. This is not unusual, as we have learned from Rebecca Haidt's *Women, Work and Clothing in Eighteenth-Century Spain*, where we are reminded that "… in regions around the Spanish capital, actual spinners, weavers and cloth-workers performed mind-numbing hours of labor in 'nebulosas industriales' (industrial zones) to produce textiles that, once sold, might become fashionable garments."11 Durán immediately connects the play's title with the spatial center of the play (Olot12) when Blas comments,

quince días de cárcel y treinta ducados de multa" ("Not even representing robberies like in *La industriosa madrileña*, in which, as a protest by 'the happy populace', the performance was not allowed to finish, which provoked an announcement, published in the *Memorial Literario* in March of 1790, in which the public was banned from 'movements, shouts, and words that might offend the decency, the good conduct, calm, and fun of the bystanders', under pain of fifteen days in jail and a fine of thirty ducats." My trans.) (2019, 55).

que mientras la industria en Olot los campos puebla, dexa el ocio en otras partes las poblaciones desiertas. 13

("that while industry populates the countryside in Olot, laziness in other parts leaves those places underpopulated." My trans.)

But "la madrileña" of the title is nowhere to be found as the play opens. The weaver in question is "un tal don Juan de Illescas"14 ("one don Juan de Illescas." My trans.) who "endilga tan bien texidos / de algodón, de hilo u seda, / que todos quantos los ven / se admiran y se embelesan"15 ("cleverly produces such wonderful cotton, filament or silk cloth, that everyone who sees them is in awe and enchanted." My trans.). Nothing new here. Cataluña had traditionally been seen as the center of "industry" (i.e., commerce) and women, when they participated in the production of textiles, often did so from their domestic, rather than their public, spaces. 16 Commerce impregnates the whole first act, as we hear much chatter of loans, IOUs, a cash-short businessman, debts, and inheritances.

Where Durán does get clever, and perhaps even slightly subversive, is in the subtle incorporation of gender into the commercial fabric of the play. We learn, for example, that the source of Don Pablo's money is not his own industriousness or financial acumen, but rather his first wife, Silvestre's mother ("yo debo mis riquezas / a su madre"17 ["I owe my wealth / to his mother." My trans.]; we will remember this detail later when we look at Gálvez's play). In fact, Silvestre is not industrious at all. Rather, he urges his half-brother Esteban to quit working and do what the typical white, upper-class male did in 18th-century Spain, that is, live off of his rental income ("que vivas como viven / las personas de tu esfera, / dexándote de labores / propias de gente plebeya"18 ["you live like those of your station, avoiding work deemed for the common folk"]). Esteban rejects the offer,

13 Durán 1790, 2. All citations from the play come from the digitized version produced by the Biblioteca Nacional de España. http://bdh-rd.bne.es/viewer.vm?id=0000069 335&page=1.

14 Durán 1790, 3.

15 Durán 1790, 3.

16 Schuchardt 2015, 109–122 has focused attention on the connection between religion and economic prosperity in Durán's play.

17 Durán 1790, 5.

18 Durán 1790, 5.

underscoring rather smugly that "es muy pícaro o muy necio, / el hombre que vive a expensas / del trabajo de los otros"19 ("the man who lives off the work of others is a rascal and a fool." My trans.) He has also been contemplating a business relationship with that previously mentioned Don Juan de Illescas, characterized as a rather odd man who keeps to himself ("de nadie ver se dexa"20 ["he lets no one see him." My trans.]), and washes and irons his own clothes (talk about gender role confusion!).

As a counter-weight to this skilled weaver D. Juan de Illescas, Durán gives us the uneducated Blas, who also weaves cloth, but of such poor quality ("con muchos defectos"21 ["with a lot of defects." My trans.]) that it is summarily rejected ("*La echa en un rincón del teatro*"22 ["*He throws it into a corner of the theater.*" My trans.]). One man does it well, another does it poorly. We might be led to believe that it will be education or social status that differentiates the skilled weaver from the unskilled one, or even just mere hard work. Esteban upbraids his half-brother Silvestre, who refers to "las viles artes"23 ("the detestable crafts." My trans.).

> ¿Quién te ha llenado, Silvestre, de tan silvestres ideas? ¿Viles llamas a las artes? ¿A la industria menosprecias, quando no hay sin ella Estado que tener pueda opulencia?24

("Who has filled you, Silvestre, with such savage ideas? You call the arts vile? You despise industry, when without it no State could have any affluence?" My trans.)

He then compares the "silvestre" Silvestre unfavorably with that industrious gentleman from Madrid, his would-be partner, D. Juan de Illescas.

Durán's *coup de théâtre* – and most subversive moment – comes midway through the first act. The audience is set up to believe that in this play the fault

19 Durán 1790, 5–6.

20 Durán 1790, 3.

21 Durán 1790, 8.

22 Durán 1790, 8.

23 Durán 1790, 7.

24 Durán 1790, 7.

lines of the weaving industry are split by class or education. But when Esteban posits the lazy Silvestre against the skilled and industrious D. Juan de Illescas ("Cada día extraño más / la notable diferencia / que hay de mi hermano a Don Juan"25 ["Every day I am surprised more by the notable difference between my brother and Don Juan." My trans.]), a shocking reveal takes place: it turns out that Don Juan is not a hard-working gentleman from the capital city, but rather … a woman. Suddenly, the equation shifts.

#### **3. Transvestism in Spanish theater**

Transvestism, or cross-dressing, was hardly new to Spanish life and letters. Dozens, if not hundreds, of examples can be adduced of men who disguised themselves as women (or, as we know, Shakespearian actors who played women's roles on stage) or, more frequently, women who dressed as men in order to achieve certain goals. Catalina de Erauso ("La Monja Alférez") comes to mind as an historical example, subsequently immortalized in a comedia by Juan Pérez de Montalbán (1626). Or, even a quick perusal of the Golden Age canon reveals that Tirso de Molina (*El vergonzoso en palacio*, 1624), Lope de Vega (*El alcalde mayor*, "*The Governing Mayor*," 1620; *La escolástica celosa*, "*The Jealous Student*," 1626), and Calderón de la Barca (*La vida es sueño*, "*Life is a Dream*," 1635, *La hija del aire*, "*Daughter of the Air*," 1653.; My trans.) all transformed women into men for various dramatic reasons. 26 Yet I think there is one fundamental difference between the cross-dressing protagonists of Golden Age plays and this new work by Francisco Durán. What is that difference?

It is this: Where in previous centuries cross-dressing was used to conceal anxieties related to love, identity, national origin or revenge, the fine novelty injected by Durán is that his cross-dresser, Doña Cecilia de Aragón (transformed into Don Juan de Illescas), does so for purely economic reasons. As Esteban calls to Don Juan, Durán's stage direction reveals the following: Doña Cecilia opens the door on the left, and she is seen to be dressed and coiffed honestly, according to Madrid's styles; but the cloth of her dress should be new, foreign, and in good taste ("Abre Doña Cecilia la puerta de la izquierda, y se dexa ver vestida y peynada honestamente al uso de Madrid; pero la tela del vestido debe ser nueva, singular y de buen gusto"27 ("Doña Cecilia opens the door to the left, revealing herself to be dressed and coiffed simply in the style of Madrid; but the

25 Durán 1790, 7.

26 Cf. Bravo-Villasante 1988, 10–21.

27 Durán 1790, 7.

cloth should be new, unique, and in good taste." My trans.). Esteban reacts: "¿Qué transformación es esta? (*Muy sorprendido*)"28 ("What kind of transformation is this?" [*Very surprised*]. My trans.).

As Cecilia recounts her sad childhood (orphaned, shut up in a garret to weave, maltreated by a greedy and homicidal aunt), she also reveals that she focused on "imitar las labores / de las ropas extrangeras"29 ("imitating the work of foreign clothing." My trans). In order to avoid being blamed for her aunt's murder of a nobleman, Cecilia arranged to "mudar de vestimenta"30 ("change her clothes." My trans.) and flee to Olot, where, as D. Juan de Illescas, she entered into a business deal with Esteban. Now, however, she is determined to move to France, as she sees herself as an "aventurera"31 ("adventuress." My trans.). Esteban gives her a left-handed compliment when he recognizes that she is both beautiful and wise ("pocas veces / hermana naturaleza / dos tan grandes qualidades"32 ["few times does nature combine two such great qualities." My trans.]), but then, recognizing the cleverness of her gender transformation, declares:

> que una joven que ha ocultado su sexo de esa manera, que sabe tantas labores, y vive con tal modestia, no puede menos de ser discreta, humilde y honesta. 33

("that a young woman has hidden her sex in this way, who knows so many tasks, and who lives so modestly, cannot be other than discreet, humble and honest." My trans.)

She is reluctant to appear in public dressed as a woman, but Esteban convinces her to go out with him to get a marriage license. The gender confusion nearly disappears as Durán focuses much of the rest of his play on melodramatic sibling rivalries, familial debts, and a putative illegitimate child, although Silvestre's father Don Pablo refers to Cecilia with the same term she had used

28 Durán 1790, 8.

29 Durán 1790, 8.

30 Durán 1790, 9.

31 Durán 1790, 12.

32 Durán 1790, 12.

33 Durán 1790, 12–13.

on herself – "aventurera"34 ("adventuress." My trans.), converting her, thus, into an "other." In Act 3 he will intensify his dislike for her, labeling her "esa advenediza"35 ("that upstart." My trans.). Cecilia has fled her complications "en disfraz de varón"36 ("in male disguise." My trans.). But we note that she does not merely flee disguised in men's clothing; now she is described as "desfigurada" ("Iba bien desfigurada / con la capa y el sombreo / de Blas"37 ["She was completely disfigured / with Blas's cape and hat." My trans.]), a subtle grammatical transformation that snaps the play back to a gendered conflict and reveals that while Durán does indeed give her some agency, it is only mediated and partial. When she reveals herself as a woman, she is promptly locked in her room ("la Cecilia ya está presa"38 ["Cecilia is now locked up." My trans.]). She is accepted into the household (and into the story) only when she comes or goes dressed as a man.

Playwrights frequently used the family as a microcosm of the larger society as a whole. When these "literary" ideas are inserted into the complex network of prohibitions, decrees, embargos, tax systems, and mercantilist control that ruled the textile industries, certain patterns tend to emerge. The family is an analogue of society. While Durán leans into analogy in order to confront the problem of the economy, María Rosa Gálvez de Cabrera does this somewhat more directly in *La familia a la moda* ("*The Modern Family.*" My trans.). 39

#### **4. María Rosa Gálvez,** *La familia a la moda* **(1805)**

Gálvez presents another "manly" figure. I use the word "manly" cautiously, because Doña Guiomar is clearly a woman in charge of her own destiny. But her liberation comes only at the expense of her husband's death, when finally, she is allowed, because she is a widow, according to Spanish law, to act with agency in her own economic affairs. 40 Gálvez sets up a series of important dichotomies

34 Durán 1790, 15.

35 Durán 1790, 24.

36 Durán 1790, 20.

39 Cf. Gies 2015, 391–405 and 2016, 154–163.

40 Cf. Buivan 2014, 138–139, citing Shubert 1990, 32–33: "Upon marriage she [a woman] automatically lost most of her legal rights and became an appendage of her husband. She required his permission to be in business and he had the authority to administer her property; she could not sell or mortgage the property she brought to the marriage without his approval, nor could she accept or reject an inheritance by herself. The Civil Code told wives that they should obey their husbands and punished disobedience with

in the play based on gender, generation, geography, and class: male vs. female, parents vs. children, rural vs. urban, and rich vs. poor. The family dynamics play themselves out along these various fault lines, but what interests us here are the economics involved in the various familial relationships.

In spite of the fact that Guiomar comes to Madrid backed by a fortune of nearly one million *reales*, her urban relatives dismiss her as an ignorant, "tosca figura"41 ("coarse figure." My trans.) merely for hailing from the provinces. They refuse to take her seriously – as a relative, as a woman – until she asserts her authority by reminding them that she controls not only the family's wealth and future, but also the printed documents that will consolidate her power, what Buivan calls her "mastery of legal documentation."42 Those documents are her last will and testament, and the marriage contract that will finally allow Inés (her niece) to marry Carlos. She is the word, the text, *and* the law. Textiles factor into this play, as they did in Durán's *La industriosa madrileña*, and French textiles in particular come in for special criticism: if the "tosca" Guiomar is criticized as being poorly dressed ("Jesús, qué poco elegante / estás, y qué mal vestida"43 ["Jesus, how inelegant you are, and how poorly dressed." My trans.]), her sisterin-law's servant Teresa is described by the author as "vestida a la francesa ridículamente"44 ("dressed ridiculously in the French style." My trans.), leaving it clear to all readers that the play will be about ideology and economics, not about fashion.

Gálvez might wish us to view Guiomar as a worthy representative of Spain's solid (i.e., traditional) ways and consider her something of a proto-feminist for her unwavering conviction in her own ability to control her purse, her destiny, and the destiny of her wayward family. 45 That the author sides with the women in this play (Madama and Teresa are excluded from this category because of their otherness, that is, because of their attachment to frivolous French customs) is underscored by the stunning moment when Faustino, who throughout the play has been disrespectful to his aunt, takes up a dance, not with one of the suitable

jail terms of five to fifteen days. This legal subordination remained in effect until 1931. Wives had to live where their husbands did and could not leave without permission … Only with the death of her husband or through legal separation could a woman recover her legal rights" Cf. also Díaz Marcos 2009.

41 Durán 1790, 165.

42 Buivan 2014, 20.

partners that might be available to him, but rather with … a chair, a wooden, inanimate object that captures perfectly the patriarchy's generalized dismissal of women.

#### **5. Conclusion**

I have spent more of my allotted time discussing *La industriosa madrileña* because *La familia a la moda* has been written about more extensively by myself and others. But my point, I hope, has been made. As María Jesús García Garrosa reminds us, these plays failed commercially and consequently probably did not contribute to "difundir las ideas de reforma de Carlos III y su equipo ilustrado" ("spreading Carlos III and his enlightened team's ideas of reform." My trans.). 46 Still, it does not strike me as irrational or even a stretch of the imagination to suggest that the late 18th and early 19th centuries witnessed an important and two-step process of development in the economic sphere, and playwrights did indeed contribute to a subtle shift in the thinking of the times. The first step might be the mere recognition that the *homo oeconomicus*47 – the merchant, the manufacturer, the entrepreneur, or (dare we say it?) the budding capitalist – had a role to play in the creation of structures that pointed toward a modern society. Traditionally, societies forged their identities around geographic realities, social values, ethnicity, power, trade, or religion. But slowly the agglutinating characteristic became economic and commercial activity (Voltaire wrote of the "common interest" in his *Letters Concerning the English Nation*, 1733). This recognition was helped along by Adam Smith, Jovellanos, Valentín de Foronda, Campomanes, even Carlos III himself, and the institutions they supported, such as the Sociedades Económicas de Amigos del País. The second step was picked up by the likes of Francisco Durán and María Rosa Gálvez, who in fictional and dramatic form suggested that women might also one day play an important role in the economic transformation of Spanish society.

#### **Bibliography**

46 García Garrosa 1993, 692.

47 Again, cf. Tschilschke 2018a, 253–257.

Shubert, Adrian.*A Social History of Modern Spain.* London: Unwin Hyman, 1990.

# Ana Hontanilla

# **Maja's Labors Lost in Ramón de la Cruz's**  *sainetes*

**Abstract** Theatrical representations during the 18th century taught working-class women in Madrid the value of domesticity. This teaching reflected government's desires not only to define working-class women's place in society and the city, but also to ensure the domestication of working-class men. To address the strategies of representation that reflected official policies to create a docile male labor force, I place Ramón de la Cruz's *sainetes* at the intersection of two 18th-century discourses: one, a sentimental discourse about women, and two, a political economy discourse about working-class men. These two discourses intersect and simultaneously structure the ideal working-class female prototype, the domestic *maja*. This is because defining the position of the female *maja* with regard to her male counterpart, the *majo* – a central function of the gendering of women in general – was a way to clarify the role of the working-class male within the larger frame of national economic imperatives.

**Keywords:** *castañera*, *maja*, *petimetra*, *sainete*, sentimental discourse, political economy

# **1. Introduction**

Women's paid labor is crucial to the functioning of families, neighborhoods, and manufacturing enterprises. This is true today as it was in 18th-century Spain. 1 Nevertheless, attempts to trace women's work in the historical archives typically yield few fruits. 2 Many factors contribute to render the work of women invisible; this article will focus on the theater. In particular, it will consider strategies around representations of 18th-century working-class female prototypes, the street vendor or *castañera*, the *maja*, and the *petimetra*, in Ramón de la Cruz's *sainetes*, or humorous one-act comic operettas. I argue that, by creating a hierarchy of respectability among women of the working classes, de la Cruz explicitly devalues women's paid labor, whether inside or outside the home. Theatrical representations taught working-class women their role as domestic partners. This teaching reflected programmatic desires not only to define working-class

1 Haidt 2011, 51.

2 Bolufer 1996, 215; Haidt 2011, 25.

women's place in society, but also to ensure the domestication of workingclass men.

To address the strategies of representation that reflected government policies to create a docile male labor force, I place the *sainetes* at the intersection of two 18th-century discourses; one, a sentimental discourse about women, and two, a political economy discourse about working-class men. These two discourses intersect and simultaneously structure the ideal working-class female prototype, the domestic *maja*. This is because defining the position of the female maja with regard to her male counterpart the *majo* – a central function of the gendering of women in general – was a way to clarify the role of the working-class male within the larger frame of national economic imperatives. My reading does not offer an account of actual working-class women's historical social positions or identities, nor does it propose that theatrical representations mirrored society. Rather, I explore how the *sainete*'s employment and emplotment of romantic conflict and resolution creates a hierarchy of working-class female labors. In this hierarchy, the stay-at-home *maja*, who delegates the duty of productive labor to the *majo*, is rewarded with marriage, while her enterprising counterparts, the street vendor and the *petimetra*, are condemned to spinsterhood.

Previous studies have shown how the theater in 18th-century Spain educated its audiences to associate labor, productivity, and industry with domesticity, delivering lessons about each gender's roles. It accomplished this through the common plot device of a man falling in love with a woman who offers social and economic capital. 3 Publications such as pamphlets and journals, as well as social events such as choral groups, although designed to interest working men, showed working-class women the happy resolution to life's problems by embracing domesticity. Promoting stable, productive, manageable workers by means of their domestication served to maintain the socio-economic status quo. 4

Here, I demonstrate how teaching male audiences into choosing productive work, meaning manufacturing labor, through marriage, first required the domestication of the *maja*, a type that gained respectability when she renounced her trade and turned over economic productivity to men. I explore this in the de la Cruz *sainete* titled *Las castañeras picadas* (1787)*.* I also examine the lyrics of *seguidillas* (dances for Castilian folk songs) included in de la Cruz's *sainete La Petra y la Juana ò el buen casero* (1791).

3 Schuchardt 2015, 112.

4 Vialette 2018, 171; Andreu 2010, 29.

#### **2. Key terms**

Before I proceed, allow me to define key terms. Working-class women of 18thcentury Spanish society, especially in Madrid, were represented by the cultural figures of the *petimetra* and the *maja*, both of them well studied by Rebecca Haidt (1999; 2011) and Tara Zanardi (2016), among others. These figures drew attention from visual artists like the painters Lorenzo Tiépolo and Francisco de Goya, as well as from playwrights like Ramón de la Cruz, each artist targeting different audiences. In de la Cruz's *sainetes*, the *maja*'s dress, manners, speech, and other behaviors reproduced the low-class popular registers of his audiences. 5 The *petimetra*, in contrast, attempted to distinguish herself from the popular classes by imitating French fashions. 6 Although *sainetes* reflected the target audience, both *majas* and *petimetras* stood out by dint of their earnings, which brought them under suspicion. In contrast Lorenzo Tiépolo, hired by the Royal family during his stay in Spain, idealized the street vendors and fortune-tellers by showcasing them in local costume. 7 Goya transformed the image of the *maja* through idealization for the amusement of aristocrats like the role-playing duchess of Alba, who posed for her portrait in the guise of a lower-class *maja* in *La maja vestida*. 8 Perhaps this artificial appropriation of working-class costume and manners subtypes contributed to the invention of the *maja* as a national prototype. Here I discuss the working-class woman's domestication not in the visual arts, which targeted upper-class private consumers, but in public performances destined for mass consumption.

A *castañera* was a street vendor of chestnuts. They were exclusively women, according to 18th- and 19th-century iconography. In *Las castañeras picadas* (1787), story A revolves around two chestnut sellers and two *petimetras*; the two parties noisily accuse each other of indecent behavior. The term *picada* means, literally, perforated or penetrated, and metaphorically, angry. Of equal importance is story B, about the *majo* Gorito, whom the *castañera* Temeraria and the *maja* Javiera – a widow and carpentry shop owner – try to entice into marriage. He must decide which to marry.

The *sainete* was a short play performed in the intermission between the first and second acts of a tragedia or comedia. Entertaining audiences with humor, music, singing and dancing, these plays enjoyed immense popularity and

5 Falk 1976, 301–304.

6 Haidt 1999, 33–35.

7 Zanardi 2018, 16.

8 Zanardi 2018, 144–148.

sometimes constituted the theater house's main draw. 9 Ramón de la Cruz, in particular, worked with actors, musicians, and company directors to create and cast roles instantly recognizable to popular audiences. Actors were cast according to a perceived type and role. In the play *Las castañeras picadas*, for instance, two actresses competing professionally in real life, Polonia Rochel from Sevilla and María Ribera from Madrid, would perform the roles of the *castañeras* competing for customers on the scene; likewise, two actresses, Joaquina Arteaga and Rafaela Moro, known for their questionable sexual morality, and thought to have a *petimetra* attitude, would perform the corresponding role of the *petimetra*; actress Francisca Laborda, widowed young in real life, would perform the role of the female character who, once widowed, must marry soon. 10 This metatheatrical aspect of the *sainete* elided the boundaries between the theater and the street to amuse the masses. Characters on the stage and actors outside the theater would or stand in for different types, by modeling positive or negative moral behaviors. 11 *Sainetes* continued to be widely performed throughout the first half of the 19th century; among the titles most frequently staged was *Las castañeras picadas*. 12

Intersectional feminism is a methodology that identifies how different constructs of social and political control, such as race and class, overlap with gender. It is a qualitative analytic framework that identifies how interlocking systems of power affect those who are most marginalized in society. 13 Black feminist scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term in 1989; since that time, controversy has surrounded the application of intersectionality to areas of study other than black feminism. To some, feminists applying intersectionality to analyze structures of power unrelated to the oppression of black women further contributes to their erasure. 14 To others, reading intersectionally helps to shed light on the positions held by the marginalized. 15 I suggest that intersectionality helps highlight how the female working class is situated at the juncture of two discourses of power during the 18th century: a sentimental discourse regarding women, and a political economy discourse regarding working-class men. Bringing the two discourses together helps me see how *majas*, at the intersection

9 Coulon 1983, 235–237.

10 Dowling 1996, 289–293.

11 Falk 1976, 299–301.

of class and gender, were assigned the role of creating the *majo*, the real labor force. But this had to be done via the *maja*'s domestication and consequent devaluation of her paid labor.

In the 18th century, the theory of moral sentiments proposed that women's sensibility was superior to that of men; accordingly, women were assigned the role of mediators. Their mission was to improve men who, in contrast to women, were dominated by their passions. Men needed help to reunite reason and sensibility. Men needed to be "civilized," otherwise their "natural" inclinations would overtake them. They needed to be domesticated into marriage and sexually regulated. Men's love should result from a sentimental education designed to harmonize desire and reason, affect and interests. Love would replace or at least transform the passion of lust, which was capricious, selfish, and at odds with social norms. Literature plotted the process by which women would teach men how to love. As such, public and private morality was seen to rest upon women's commitment to a domestic role. 16

The political-economic discourse of the time, on the other hand, established distinctions among social groups through the categories of national wealth, general employment, and productive work. 17 Political economists calculated national wealth according to the production of useful goods and the number of (male) workers employed in such production. 18 If manufacturers contributed to the wealth and strength of the monarchy, the individual who was not known to produce goods for consumption and exchange, either in artisans' shops or by farming, could be labeled as vagrant and therefore harmful to the nation. 19 This notion of labor created productive and unproductive subjects, providing the basis for the Crown to develop policies designed to increase the number of workers and decrease the number of idlers. Executive decrees on vagrancy normalized the economic imperative toward productivity, criminalizing men who were viewed as derelict in their duty to work. 20

As for women, 18th-century political economy barred them from the category of productive workers altogether. However, sentimental discourse overlapped with political-economic discourse in light of the requirement that women fill the role of mediators between the social order and men's passions. Working-class

16 Bolufer 2016, 24–26 and 2004, 362–363.

17 Díez Rodríguez 2014, 21–49.

18 Uztáriz 1724; Ward 1750, 28–29, 90–91.

19 Sempere y Guarinos 1787, xxi–xxii.

20 Pérez Estévez 1976, 66–135.

women were also expected to promote not only men's character, but also their productivity. In the name of moral sensibility and to serve the nation's economy, working-class women were expected to help working-class men find their place in society – to learn how to love not only their wives, but also the common good by becoming productive as laborers. They should, in short, put all their energies into supporting a *majo* in his economically productive work, and certainly not in undertaking such work themselves.

The danger posed by any undomesticated working-class woman who did not embody these characteristics and role, and the need to enforce the *maja*'s ideal role, became a subject of cultural representation, specifically in *sainetes*. *Sainetes* were an important medium for educating the working classes. The lessons were clear: men must become workers; women, social mediators. The plays used the domesticated *maja* ideal to urge working-class female earners to take up a similar domestic role and leave earning to *majos*. Let us look into these strategies for domestication.

#### **3. Aggressive humor**