The Coplas in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

The fate of Jorge Manrique's Coplas in the eighteenth century is closely linked to the tendencies and development of literary studies throughout the period. The Neoclassical era, with its concern for cultural progress, saw the birth of literary historiography as a discipline, resulting in the systematic classification of literary texts colored by prevalent cultural attitudes. Before this time the field of history was generally limited to accounts of military actions but it slowly expanded to include scientific and cultural topics. The term “literature,” however, had a much more extensive meaning, encompassing knowledge of all kinds, and rarely including belles lettres, literature of artistic or aesthetic merit (Carnero 1: 108–09). This is the state of the question in 1757 when Gregorio Mayans y Siscar published his influential Rhetorica, where he offers this definition of literary history:

This seems to be the line of inquiry that brothers Rafael and Pedro Rodríguez Mohedano followed in their encyclopedic Historia literaria de España (1766–91), which can probably be considered the first systematic attempt to write such a work.