La recepción del epicureísmo romano en el Arte de las putas de Nicolás Fernández de Moratín

The Epicurean philosophy, which prioritized emotional tranquillity (ataraxia) as the key to happiness, opposed passionate love, marriage, and procreation due to their potential to cause worry. Instead, Epicureans advocated sporadic, promiscuous relationships, preferably with prostitutes, to satisfy sexual urges without emotional entanglements. Roman authors like Lucretius and Horace echoed these views, with Lucretius vigorously condemning love in his didactic poem De rerum natura and Horace cautioning against emotional involvement in love affairs in his Satires. Nicolás Fernández de Moratín (1737-1780), in a context of Rococo sensualism, similarly embraced these themes in his poem Arte de las putas (ca. 1770), creatively assimilating Epicurean motifs from Lucretius and Horace to guide young people in enjoying their sexuality without causing harm or scandal. While the influence of Ovid’s Ars amatoria on Arte de las putas has been duly highlighted, this paper explores an aspect previously overlooked: the reception of Roman Epicureanism (as represented by Lucretius and Horace) in Moratín’s poem.