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adence that he believed had reduced Por-
tugal and Spain to backward isolationism.
His doubts and frustrations are clearly evi-
dent in the sonnets that he wrote in his
last years. Finally, restless and exhausted
in spirit, he committed suicide. For all that
he had scorned the overblown romanti-
cism of early 19th-century literature,
Quental lived and ended his life like the
most romantic of heroes.
discharged in 1643 in broken health that
soon led to his death.
Quevedo has been praised by critics for
his amazing range of knowledge, his stylistic
brilliance, and his satirical wit. With so many
positive elements in his nature, he was,
however, clearly a deeply resentful individ-
ual, whose attacks on other writers (most
famously L
UIS
DE
G
ÓNGORA
) and inability to
stay out of political trouble envenomed his
human relationships. Quevedo was appar-
ently tormented by the very breadth of his
knowledge and understanding that the age
in which he lived was one of decline, when
the corruption and futility that underlay the
golden façade of imperial Spain was destroy-
ing its greatness. He saw not the glory of its
past but the sordidness of its present and the
futility of its leaders' policies.
His most noted works are unsparing
depictions of vice and depravity in which
individuals such as the protagonist of his
picaresque novel
Historia de la vida del bus-
con llamado don Pablos
(
Life and Adventures
of Don Pablos the Sharper,
1603-08) lie,
cheat, and steal their way through life.
Dating from the same early period but not
published until the 1620s is satire
Los sue-
ños
(
Dreams
). These volumes constitute a
collective variation on the theme of Dante's
Inferno
as the reader is taken on a tour of
the most repellent circles of society. Either
in genuine moments of religious feeling or
from a desire to avoid clerical censorship,
Quevedo also wrote works couched in
terms of Christian belief such as
Política de
Dios
(Polity of God, 1626). It is not clear,
however, that he found any prospect of a
renovation of society in spiritual transfor-
mation. Commentators have called Que-
vedo the most pessimistic of all Spanish
Quevedo y Villegas, Francisco de
(1580-1645)
Spanish poet and novelist
Born to a wealthy and well-connected fam-
ily, Quevedo was an impressive student at
the Universities of Alcalá and Valladolid
where he demonstrated skill in languages
and poetry. His work is said to have been
praised by F
ÉLIX
L
OPE
DE
V
EGA
and M
IGUEL
DE
C
ERVANTES
. Quevedo was, however, a
restless and dissatisfied young man whose
writing was rather an outlet for his resent-
ment and embitterment that a work of
pure art.
A dabbler in political intrigue as well as a
critic of contemporary politics, he took part
in a series of murky enterprises between
1613 and 1621 related to the viceregal ten-
ure of his patron, the duke of Osuna, in Sic-
ily and Naples. After spending some time in
prison at the beginning of P
HILIP
IV's reign
(perhaps due to fiscal irregularities in the
administration of Italian revenues), Que-
vedo succeeded in ingratiating himself with
the new king. Unable to restrain his satiri-
cal impulses, he offended the monarch and
his chief minister, O
LIVARES
, with a political
diatribe in 1639. The result was another
period of imprisonment from which he was
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