Góngora y Argote, Luis de

Góngora y Argote, Luis de (1561-1627), Spanish lyric poet and dramatist, born in Córdoba of a distinguished family, and educated at the University of Salamanca. He took orders, obtained a minor ecclesiastical post, and eventually became chaplain to Philip III. His innovative style of exaggerated elegance, artificiality, and florid use of figures of speech came to be known as Gongorism or culteranismo, the equivalent of euphuism in English Renaissance poetry. The style was not viewed with disfavour until his imitators, lacking his gifts, abused it.

Among his writings in this Baroque style are the great long poems of his maturity, Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea (1613, Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea) and his unfinished masterpiece, Soledades (c. 1613; trans. the Solitudes of Don Luis de Góngora, 1931). With heavy Latinate vocabulary, this pastoral poem contrasts the innocent beauty of natural scenery with human life.

After a long period of neglect, Góngora enjoyed a renewed influence and popularity in Spain during the first half of the 20th century.