<b><i>Cartas Chilenas</i> and <i>Cartas Marruecas</i>: between the enlightenment appeal and the iberian tradition

Abstract

Cartas Chilenas, published in book in 1845, was known by readers only in manuscripts in 1789, some months before the episode of Conjuração Mineira, which was the main reason for the incarceration of Thomás Antônio Gonzaga and his banishment to Mozambique. On the other hand, an incomplete version of Cartas Marruecas was published in 1789 in Correo de Madri, after the death of the author José de Cadalso, who passed away during his period in the Army, as a consequence of a British attack in the south of Spain in 1782. Both of the texts belong to an epistolary literary tradition, whose first important work was the Persian Letters, written by Montesquieu. By following the chronological order of both texts, the aim of this essay is to demonstrate that, despite their inspiration in the French Enlightenment, either Cadalso or Gonzaga were more influenced by social and cultural features experienced in the Iberian Peninsula at the end of the Old Regime.