Leandro Fernández de Moratín

Poet and playwright, son of Nicolás Fernández de Moratin (1737-1780), who was also a playwright. In 1787, Moratín was sent on a mission to France and used his stay to study French drama and meet young poets and writers. This would inspire him to reform Spanish drama with plays in the French classical style, e.g. El Viejo y la Ninña (1790) and La Comedia Nueva (1792). After travelling through France, England, Germany, Italy and the Low Countries, Moratín improved his style, with plays such as El Barón (1803) and La Mojigata (The Female Hypocrite, 1804). His best work is El Si de las Niñas (1806). Due to political causes, Moratín was forced into exile, and went to Paris, where he died in 1828. His El médico a palos (1928) was an adaptation of Molière's Le Médecin malgré Lui.