"La caída para levantarse": san Pablo, espejo de Quevedo

Abstract

This study reflects upon La caida para levantarse , focusing in particular on its representation of Saint Paul as a transhistorical model of eloquence. Fusing his authorial project with the apostle’s auratic word, Quevedo endows his own writing with a providential stature. While thus engaging in a deliberate anachronism that obviates the differences between their respective historical horizons, he concomitantly foregrounds the relevance of Pauline language to the conflicted cultural context of the Counter Reformation. Addressed here are both the way in which Quevedo exploits the argumentative versatility already present in the rhetoric of his precursor, and the audacious manipulation entailed in his adaptation of the apostle’s millenarian discourse to the requirements of baroque ingenuity.