FRANCISCO
GOMEZ DE QUEVEDO Y SANTIBANEZ VILLEGAS
“Francisco de Quevedo (1580–1645) is not simply a man, but an unfathomable, multifaceted literature,” as Jorge Luis Borges said, who considered him the greatest poet of Spanish letters. Few voices reach us from the Baroque era with such intensity and timelessness. His poetry and satire, as well as his own turbulent life, are still remembered even in the everyday conversations of Spaniards.
Dreams are another aspect of life: they are reality. Quevedo sleeps and dreams of Truth. In his sleep he is carried away to the opposite shore, the world of the dead, and with astonishment—but also a sardonic smile—he finds everyone in Hell: doctors, lawyers, judges, policemen, sycophants, priests, innkeepers, second-rate poets, nouveau riche—all of them corrupt and greedy, hypocrites and short-sighted. A merciless and ever-relevant satire.
