Styles of disillusion

Abstract

Disillusion in early seventeenth-century Spain is at once a symptom and a style. In a great writer, such as the Quevedo of Los sueiios, disillusion becomes a total world-view. In common with his contemporaries, he fails to realize the disastrous implications of the trading deficit, economic inflation as a result of importing silver from America, the intellectual stranglehold of the Jesuits, and the peculiar delusions of military supremacy that induce Olivares to rekindle the fires of war in the 'Low Countries. His social awareness is, typically, undeveloped. But he realizes the malaise behind these symptoms, and strives to root out hypocrisy from Spain. To this end he will not allow his voice to be shouted down, using as his principal vehicle for satire the varied phantasmagoria of Los suenos.