Between Laughter and Weeping: Justo medio in the Cartas marruecas of Jose Cadalso

Abstract

This dissertation examines the genre, narrativity and use of humor in Colonel José Cadalso's1774 work Cartas marruecas (Moroccan Letters). The Moroccan Letters consists of a fictitious correspondence carried on between three people: Gazel Ben-Aly, a Moroccan youth traveling in Spain; Gazel's mentor Ben-Beley in Africa; and Gazel's Spanish friend, the military officer Nuño Núñez. The relationship of the Moroccan Letters to other works in which an author criticized his own country through the guise of a supposedly impartial foreign observer is analyzed, works such as: Giovanni Paolo Marana's L'Espion du Grand Seigneur (Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy, 1684-86)), Montesquieu's Lettres persanes (Persian Letters, 1721), and Oliver Goldsmith's Chinese Letters (Citizen of the World, 1760-61). Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America (1835) is a well-known example from the nineteenth century of the observations of a foreigner visiting another country

Cadalso used three main techniques to impart a humorous aspect to what is a serious work: satire, irony and parody. The main target of Cadalso's humor is the character known as the petimetre, a French-influenced dandy who flourished in eighteenth-century Spain. Censorship, perspectivismo (use of different points of view) and costumbrismo (focus upon folk customs) are also discussed. In addition, attention is given to Cadalso's concern with luxury and the bad effects of the frivolous upon Spanish society.