QUEVEDO Y VILLEGAS, FRANCISCO GÓMEZ de. – Polymath, born in Madrid on 17 September 1580, died at Villanueva de los Infantes on 8 September 1645. Of noble family, he was brought up as a child at court and remained attached to that milieu throughout his life.
It was at court, precisely, that in 1609 he met Pedro Tellez de Giron, duke of Osuna, who granted him his protection, took him with him when he was appointed viceroy of Sicily and subsequently of Naples, and entrusted him with important diplomatic missions. Later Q. fell out with him and withdrew permanently to Spain, where he again alternated between imprisonment and release.
A writer of exceptional fecundity, he lavished in his
QUEVEDO Y VILLEGAS FRANCISCO GÓMEZ - QUIETISM
in prose and verse the riches of his enormous culture, his human experience, his acute and mordant spirit, and his meditation.
The body of his writings presents all of Spain in the first half of the seventeenth century: in its courtly life (Vida de la corte) and its picaresque life (Historia de la vida del Buscón); in satire of 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 in its 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, burlesque, satirical, and sacred poems are also varied, and his entremeses exceptionally lively. The reality depicted by Q. is nevertheless deformed, often grotesquely, by the concision with which the author succeeds in capturing the essence of every thing and every person, and by the rapidity with which he expresses it, as though in a continuous, nervous pursuit of images and thoughts. Hostile to the «culterana» current, he is considered the leading exponent of conceptismo, although he sought to connect himself with traditional classical forms, pursuing clarity through synthesis. To this end, the word is often forced beyond its meaning, while violent contrasts and daring hyperboles produce considerable artificiality. The religious attitude, tinged with classical Stoicism, is the essence of Q.’s personality; in asceticism he succeeds in harmonizing his bitter vision of the world with his meditative struggle.