Quevedo: Sonnets and Poems Francisco de Quevedo

Poetry

Quevedo produced a vast quantity of poetry.[12] His poetry, which was not published in book form during his lifetime, "shows the caricature-like vision its author had of men, a vision sometimes deformed by a sharp, cruel, violently critical nature."[13] This attitude is of a piece with the "black seventeenth century"[14] he lived in. Despite his satirical work, however, Quevedo was primarily a serious poet who valued love poems.[13]

His poetry gives evidence not only of his literary gifts but also of his erudition (Quevedo had studied Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, French, and Italian).[15] One of his sonnets, A Roma sepultada en sus ruinas (1650), was an adaptation of a French poem by Joachim du Bellay, Nouveau venu qui cherches Rome en Rome, from Les Antiquités de Rome (1558).[16] His poetic works range from satirical and mythological subjects to love poetry and philosophical pieces.

Quevedo constantly attacked avarice and avaricious people. His Cartas del Caballero de la Tenaza attack a notorious miser.[15] He also attacked apothecaries, who had a reputation for adulterating and badly preparing medications.[15]

His love poetry includes such works as Afectos varios de su corazón, fluctuando en las ondas de los cabellos de Lisi (Several Reactions of his Heart, Bobbing on the Waves of Lisi's Hair). As one scholar has written, "Even though women were never very much appreciated by Quevedo, who is labeled as a misogynist, it is impossible to imagine that there was anyone else who could adore them more."[15] The first four lines run as follows:

Within a curly storm of wavy gold

must swim great gulfs of pure and blazing light

my heart, for beauty eagerly athirst,

when your abundant tresses you unbind.[17]

His work also employed mythological themes, typical of the age,[15] though it also employs satirical elements, for example in his To Apollo chasing Daphne:

Ruddy silversmith from up on high,

in whose bright beams the rabble pick their fleas:

Daphne, that nymph, who takes off and won't speak,

if you'd possess her, pay, and douse your light.[18]

Quevedo's poetry also includes pieces such as an imagined dedication to Columbus by a piece of the ship in which the navigator had discovered the New World:

Once I had an empire, wanderer,

upon the billows of the salty sea;

I was moved by the wind and well-respected,

to southern lands I forged an opening.[19]

Novel

The only novel written by Quevedo is the picaresque novel Vida del Buscón or El Buscón (Full original title: Historia de la vida del Buscón, llamado Don Pablos, ejemplo de vagamundos y espejo de tacaños) published in 1626. The work is divided into three books. The novel was popular in English; it was first translated by John Davies in 1657 under the title The Life and Adventures of Buscon the Witty Spaniard, a second edition appearing in 1670.[20] New translations appeared in 1683 and 1707.[21]

Theological works

Quevedo produced about 15 books on theological and ascetic subjects.[3] These include La cuna y la sepultura (1612; The Cradle and the Grave) and La providencia de Dios (1641; The Providence of God).

Literary criticism

His works on literary criticism include La culta latiniparla (The Craze for Speaking Latin) and Aguja de navegar cultos (Compass for Navigating among Euphuistic Reefs). Both works were written with the purpose of attacking culteranismo.[3]

Satire

Quevedo's satire includes Sueños y discursos, also known as Los Sueños (1627; Dreams and Discourses). Quevedo employed much word-play in this work, which consists of five "dream-visions." The first is The Dream of the Last Judgment, in which Quevedo finds himself witnessing the Day of Judgment, and closes with a glimpse of Hell itself. The second dream is The Bedeviled Constable in which a constable is possessed by an evil spirit, which results in the evil spirit begging to be exorcised, since the constable is more evil of the two. The third dream is the long Vision of Hell. The fourth dream-vision is called The World from the Inside The last dream is Dream of Death in which Quevedo offers examples of man's dishonest ways.[22]

In the Dreams, the somewhat misanthropic Quevedo showcased his antipathy for numerous groups, including but not limited to tailors, innkeepers, alchemists, astrologers, women, the Genovese, Protestants, constables, accountants, Jews, doctors, dentists, apothecaries, and hypocrites of all kinds.

He wrote too, in a satirical tone, La hora de todos y la Fortuna con seso (1699), with many political, social and religious allusions. He shows in it his ability in the use of language, with word-play and fantastic and real characters. La Isla de los Monopantos, a virulently antisemitic tale in the book portraying a secret Jewish plot to destroy Christendom with the assistance of the Monopanto chief Pragas Chincollos (a satirical portrayal of the Count-Duke of Olivares), is believed by some to have been a key influence in Hermann Goedsche's novel Biarritz, one of the unacknowledged sources of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.[23] A strident antisemite and opponent of the conversos, Quevedo had described the character of the Portuguese new Christians to Philip IV in his work Execración contra los judíos (a blend of a teological-medieval anti-Jewish worldview and racial antisemitism) in the following light: "mice they are, Lord, enemies of the light, friends of darkness, unclean, stinking, subterranean".[24]

Political works

His political works include La política de Dios, y gobierno de Cristo (1617–1626; "The Politics of the Lord") and La vida de Marco Bruto (1632–1644; The Life of Marcus Brutus).[3] According to writers Javier Martínez-Pinna and Diego Peña "in his writings he always manifested an obsession for the defense of the country, being convinced of the necessity and inevitability of the hegemony of Spain in the world, something that in the full Spanish decline had to do him much harm. It was also integrated in the tradition of laus Hispaniae, established by San Isidoro and used by Quevedo himself to try to recover the values that he thought, made the nation powerful. In a series of works like his defended Spain, he praised the greatness of his most prestigious compatriots, highlighting the Spanish superiority in the field of letters, visible in authors such as Fray Luis de León, Jorge Manrique or Garcilaso de la Vega, but also in the art of war, making possible the victory of Castilian weapons in their confrontations against Arabs and other European powers during the sixteenth century."[25]