¿Quevedo hebraísta? Lágrimas de Hieremías castellanas

Abstract

Quevedo's writings related to the Bible must be considered within the sociocultural framework of the Counterreformation. The authors focus on the Lágrimas de Hieremías castellanas, a literal translation and commentary of the first chapter of the book of Lamentations. They attempt to evaluate the level of Quevedo's knowledge of Biblical Hebrew and the arguments he urged on his defence of the Vulgate. After a detailed analysis of Quevedo's book and the study of the most significant cases, the authors draw the following conclusions: a) Quevedo followed the Ferrara Bible in his literal translation but not in his commentary; b) Quevedo had sufficient knowledge of Hebrew as to evaluate the meaning of the original text, compared with the ancient versions and the current commentaries; c) Quevedo defended the Vulgate by means of disciplinary reasoning rather than by philological arguments. In his treatise on the Lágrimas Quevedo shows again his paradoxical character: he literally followed the Ferrara Bible, and he even resorted occasionally to the Talmud and other Jewish sources; at the same time, he defended at any cost the Vulgate, in accordance with the norm and spirit of the Counterreformation.