QUEVEDO Y VILLEGAS, FRANCISCO GÓMEZ de. - Polymath, b. in Madrid on 17 Sept. 1580, d. in Villanueva de los Infantes on 8 Sept. 1645. Of a noble family, raised as a child at court, he remained bound to that environment throughout his life.
It was precisely at court that in 1609 he met Pedro Tellez de Giron, Duke of Osuna, who granted him his protection, took him with him when he was elected viceroy of Sicily and then of Naples, entrusting him with important diplomatic assignments. Later Q. fell out with him and withdrew definitively to Spain, where he still suffered alternately imprisonment and releases.
A writer of exceptional fecundity, he poured into his works in prose and verse the riches of his enormous culture, of his human experience, of his sharp and mordant wit and of his meditation.
The whole body of his writings presents the entire Spain of the first half of the 17th century in its court life (Vida de la corte) and in its picaresque life (Historia de la vida del Buscón); in its satire on vices (Los Sueños; Discurso de todos los diablos; La hora de todos, etc.), in its politics (España defendida; Política de Dios; Grandes anales de quince días; Vida de Marco Bruto, etc.), in its literary and philosophical life (Aguja de navegar cultos; La culta latiniparla; La Perinola; De los remedios de cualquier fortuna; Nombre, origen, intento de la doctrina es-dica etc.) and religious life (Consideración sobre el Testamento Nuevo; Declamación de Jesucristo; La cuna y la sepultura; Providencia de Dios; Vida de s. Pablo, etc.). His love poems, burlesque, satirical and sacred poems are also varied, and his entremeses are extremely lively. The reality shown by Q. is, however, deformed, often grotesquely, because of the conciseness with which the author manages to capture the essence of every thing and every person and because of the rapidity with which he expresses it, almost in a continuous, nervous pressing on of images and thoughts. Hostile to the "culteranista" current, he is considered the leader of conceptismo, insofar as he wished to link himself back to the traditional classical forms, seeking clarity in synthesis. For this purpose the word is often forced in its meaning, while violent contrasts and bold hyperboles generate considerable artificiality. The religious attitude, tinged with classical stoicism, is the essence of Q.'s personality, who in ascetics manages to harmonize his bitter vision of the world with his meditative travail.