Courting Wisdom: Silence, Solitude and Friendship in Eighteenth-Century Spain

Abstract

The notion of silence is not one that is usually associated with the Spanish eighteenth century, or its literature. This was an age of reason, marked by new ideas, technologies, literature and fashion, but also by friendship, sociability and the importance of sharing knowledge. Many of the dominant trends of the period were the very antithesis of silence and solitude; new royal academies were founded, as were sociedades de amigos del país, and the periodic press became an essential vehicle for dissemination of new ideas.

This “Modern Epidemic”: Loneliness as an Emotion Cluster and a Neglected Subject in the History of Emotions

“…Taylor, 2017). The "retreat" to nature as a means to find happiness links to the psychological root of pastoral literature, and to deistic ideas of God-in-nature (Raillard, 2016). Solitude was not incompatible with sociability, as it could be mentally and physically invigorating, improving the individual so that he or she might better fare in society.…”