Imagenes elementales de España en la cultura francesa del siglo XVIII: de la cultura material a la opinión pública

Abstract

The aim of this article is to illustrate certain possibilities of adaptation of literary studies to the field of «material history» as defined in the work of Fernand Braudel («material civilization») and particularly Jean-Marie Pesez in the collective work coordinated by J. Le Goff, La nouvelle histoire (1998). It thus traces, with commentary, certain elemental images of Spain (plants, fruit, wool, horses, wine, not to mention the symbolic product, gold) that may have gone through a process of literaturization, but above all, of «socialization», in «literary» works and texts (ranging from the article in the Encyclopedie to the descriptive poetry so much in vogue during the Enlightenment). In spite of the fragmentation of the inquiry, a gradual reformulation of the essential bases of a «social imagery» is being made that should serve a broader study of (French) «public opinion» when faced with a foreign culture (Spanish culture).