Quevedo’s Sonnet: A Baroque Reflection on Mortality
Analysis
In the 17th century, the Baroque movement disrupted Renaissance conventions, embracing exaggeration and disproportion. Francisco de Quevedo’s sonnet exemplifies this aesthetic. Written in traditional form—two quartets and two tercets, each verse with 11 syllables and a cross rhyme scheme—the poem explores the author’s confrontation with mortality.
Structure and Themes
The sonnet is divided into two parts. The first (the quartets) depicts the author’s struggle with impending death, a battle between life and death where he progressively weakens. The second part (the tercets) presents the author’s perspective after death, speaking as if his soul has departed. Quevedo’s pessimistic view is evident throughout, with a constant focus on death.
Rhetorical Devices
Quevedo masterfully employs rhetorical figures. The opening line, “was sleeping yesterday, yesterday was a dream,” uses hyperbaton to emphasize the author’s pessimism. The second verse features anaphora (“Shortly before, nothing, shortly after, smoke”) and antithesis, contrasting past and future. The phrase “fusi tempus” (time flies) highlights the author’s awareness of fleeting time and decay. The third verse continues the anaphora (“And destiny ambitions, and I presume”) and introduces a paradox: “destination ambitions.” The beginning of the second quartet, “Short unwelcome bout war,” is a metaphor for the struggle against death. Quevedo uses further metaphors to depict his defense against death (“In my defense, I am high risk”) and the passage of time (“And while I use my arms”). The final verse of the quartet uses a metaphor to represent death’s victory and the soul’s departure from the body.
The Tercets
The first tercet is a large hyperbaton: “is no longer happening yesterday and was today and tomorrow is not reached, with movement that brings me headlong death.” This disordered chronology symbolizes the soul’s loss of memory after death. Death is personified as a being. The final stanza is also a hyperbaton: “Hoes is the time and the time that, by the day of my grief and care, Dig in my live my monument.” This can be reordered as: “The wages of my grief and care, time and date are hoes that dig into my my living monument.” The paradox “the time and date are hoes” signifies the cessation of time after death. “The wages of my grief and care” is a metaphor for life. This final tercet embodies the “fusi tempus” theme, emphasizing the inevitability of death throughout life.
Conclusion
Quevedo’s sonnet presents life as a war against death, with death as the ultimate victor. The personification of death, the “fusi tempus” theme, and the author’s pessimism are characteristic of Baroque literature. The abundant metaphors for life and death further exemplify the Baroque and conceptismo styles, reflecting Quevedo’s unique literary voice.