Luis de Góngora
Luis de Góngora y Argote (July 11, 1561 – May 24, 1627) was a Spanish lyric poet.
Born at Córdoba, where his father, Francisco de Argote, was corregidor, the poet adopted the surname of his mother, Leonor de Góngora, who was descended from an ancient family. At the age of 15 he entered as a student of civil law and Canon law at the University of Salamanca, but was content with an ordinary pass degree. He was already known as a poet in 1585 when Miguel de Cervantes praised him in La Galatea; in this same year he took minor orders and shortly afterwards was nominated to a canonry at Córdoba. Around 1605 he was ordained priest, and afterwards lived at Valladolid and Madrid, where, as a contemporary remarks, he "noted and stabbed at everything with his satirical pen."
His circle of admirers grew; but the acknowledgment of his genius was grudging. Ultimately, through the influence of the duke of Lerma, in 1617 he obtained an appointment as honorary chaplain to King Philip III of Spain, but did not enjoy the honour for long. Besides, he sustained a long feud with Francisco de Quevedo, probably the only Spanish poet of his time that matched him in talent and inventiveness. Both poets composed lots of bitter (and funny) satirical pieces attacking each other, with Quevedo taking advantage of Góngora's defects such as his penchant for flattery and passion for gambling, and even accusing him of sodomy, a capital crime in XVII century Spain. This angry dispute came to a nasty end for Góngora when Quevedo bought the house he lived in for the only purpose of kicking him out of it. In 1626 a severe illness, which seriously impaired the poet's memory, forced him to return to his hometown, where he died.
An edition of his poems was published almost immediately after his death by Juan López de Vicuña; the frequently reprinted edition by Hozes did not appear until 1633. The collection consists of numerous sonnets, odes, ballads, songs for guitar, and of certain larger poems, such as the Soledades and the Polifemo, the two landmarks of culteranismo. Many of them exhibit that extravagant elaboration of style (estilo culto) the name of Góngora is associated with. Even if criticised for affected Latinisms, unnatural transpositions, strained metaphors and frequent obscurity, he was a man of rare genius, as acknowledged by those of his contemporaries who were most capable of judging. It was only in the hands of those who imitated Góngora's style without inheriting his genius that culteranismo became absurd.
Besides his lyrical poems Góngora was the author of a play entitled Las firmezas de Isabel and of two incomplete dramas, the Comedia venatoria and El doctor Carlino.
References
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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