The iberian diasporas in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

This chapter presents the key trends in the Sephardic literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries-primarily written in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), but also in Hebrew-from a panoramic perspective, while also offering a profile of the intended audience of this literature. Not all genres of Sephardic literary creativity can be included in my discussion, particularly when it comes to the nineteenth century, when the scope of the Ladino corpus expanded significantly. Rather, this chapter attempts to identify the most prominent genres of this literature in terms of both quantity and quality. In the eighteenth and, even more so, in the nineteenth centuries, the bulk of Sephardic literature was written in the local Ladino vernacular rather than in the high-status language Hebrew. Therefore, Ladino literature was accessible to broad Sephardic audiences who were not literate in Hebrew. Starting in the eighteenth century, Ladino literature began to appeal to a broader audience than ever before, both through the expansion of the use of the vernacular and through the diversification of literary genres along with the strengthening of their popularizing tendencies.