Cuadernos Dieciochistas (Feb 2014)
Sacrificing Reputation as a Litterateur for the Title of Citizen: Good Taste and Political Culture in New Granada at the End of the Eighteenth Century
Abstract
This essay explores what it meant to be called or to call oneself a citizen in New Granada in 1791, long before the political crisis of 1808 and, therefore, the gradual arrival of liberal ideas to the Hispanic world. In particular an attempt is made to delineate the figure of the citizen and separate it from that of litterateur through the new expectations that accompanied each of these figures. In this sense the article ponders how to understand the apparent identification of literatos with bad taste, and citizens with good taste, as the cardinal motif of the new citizenships.
