EL SONETO DE QUEVEDO »¡QUÉ PEREZOSOS PIES, QUÉ ENTRETENIDOS« EN DOS CONTEXTOS DIFERENTES Juguetes de la niñez (1631) y El Parnaso español (1648)

Abstract

Quevedo is well known for having revitalized the love poetry of his time. One way to do so was replacing the traditional imagery of lyric poetry with imagery taken from moral poetry, thus changing lyric poetry from erotic to ethical. A good illustration of this practice is the sonnet »iQue perezosos pies, que entretenidos« (’How lazy these feet, how undirected‘), which tells the story of a lover proud of dying for love. The pressure of censorship led to the replacement of a biblical text included in the edition of Juguetes de la ninez (1631) with the aforementioned sonnet. Within this book, this love sonnet appeared to be something that it wasn't: a moralistic one. When the sonnet was again published in the posthumous edition of El Parnaso espanol (1648), it was included in a section exclusively devoted to amorous poems, the musa Erato. One title, presumably written by Quevedo himself, was added: »Amante desesperado del premio y obstinado en amar« (’A lover deprived of the price and determined to love‘) which directly states the exact meaning of the piece. This double publication shows the necessity for the critical editor of Quevedo's poetry to preserve the distribution in musas planned by the poet himself and respected in El Parnaso espanol.