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The Barber of Enlightened Spain: On the Politics and Practice of Grooming a Modern Nation
Author(s) -
Campo Tejedor Alberto
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal for eighteenth‐century studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.129
H-Index - 11
eISSN - 1754-0208
pISSN - 1754-0194
DOI - 10.1111/1754-0208.12638
Subject(s) - opposition (politics) , archetype , politics , compendium , narrative , symbol (formal) , literature , history , character (mathematics) , sociology , art , gender studies , political science , law , philosophy , linguistics , archaeology , geometry , mathematics
From as early as the late sixteenth century, the barber in Spain was stereotyped as a lowly, idle chatterer, more concerned with the guitar than with his job. The anti‐French movement in eighteenth‐century Spain took up the figure of the barber as a symbol of majismo , a compendium of values and lifestyle resistant to foreign acculturation, meant to signify the Spanish national character. Analysing representations of the barber through an interdisciplinary lens, I seek to elucidate how this archetype allowed the construction of a Spanish, castizo narrative, in opposition to new fashions, and to the civilising and modernising spirit of France.