Los títulos de Quevedo

Abstract

277

Quevedo’s titles constitute a great problem when we need to edit his works or even when we only try to mention them. There are many textual obstacles, for example the abundance of poems or works in prose with different versions and phases of writing. But his titles are also long and rich, allusive and ambiguous, they are built with sentences that look for symmetry, synonymity, oxymoron, paradox or antithesis. Another problem, in his own time and today, is the editors and publishers’ extreme freedom: they dared with changing, censoring, abbreviating or even confusing different works. And it must be also mentioned the changes caused by invectives and censorship in the 17th century. This article intends to add new arguments to the proposals of previous scholars that demanded greater attention and care about Quevedo’s titles. Reviewing a significant sample of cases, it exemplifies some of the main problems: works and titles with an imprecise or wrong delimitation, different versions whose titles do not correspond with that of its own phase of writing, abbreviated titles that omit nuclear elements or punctuation that does not establish a suitable hierarchy of its contents. And this article aims some possible solutions, taking always into consideration the evidences given by the few autographic manuscripts still conserved, because they show Quevedo’s worry, care and accuracy when he gave shape to his titles writing with the quill-feather on the folio.

Keywords

Quevedo, titles, autographic manuscripts, different versions, editors and publishers’ changes, printing, punctuation