Poesías

Nicolás Fernández de Moratín was born on July 20, 1737, in Madrid—a city shaped by the influence of the so-called *novatores* and already firmly, if still in the early stages, on the path toward modernization. Throughout his eventful life, he captured the spirit of his era in a significant number of poetic compositions; however, only a portion of these were ever published, and—as various sources indicate—a great deal remained unpublished. Following his death in 1785, his son Leandro, with the collaboration of José Antonio Loche, published the epic poem *Las naves de Cortés destruidas* ("The Ships of Cortés Destroyed"), for which he provided a "Prologue" and "Critical Reflections by the Editor." Years later, in 1821, Leandro made the first attempt to present his father’s body of work to the public in a collection titled *Obras póstumas* ("Posthumous Works")—a publication that, unfortunately, introduced significant issues regarding editing and textual attribution. The present volume draws upon numerous sources to provide a refined, modern, and as-complete-as-possible edition of all the poems definitively known to be the work of this key figure in the restoration of Spanish poetry; it further includes those poems that have survived solely through his son’s version.