There he studied theology, a subject that would become a lifelong interest, and on which in later life he would compose the treatise Providencia de Dios (God's Providence) against atheism.

Some of his poetry was collected in a 1605 generational anthology by Pedro Espinosa entitled Flores de Poetas Ilustres (Flowers by Illustrious Poets).

We can also date back to this time the first draft of his picaresque novel Vida del Buscón – apparently written as an exercise in courtly wit – and a few satirical pamphlets that made him famous among his fellow students and which he would later disown as juvenile pranks.

[6] The preferred object of his fury and ridicule, however, was the poet Góngora, whom, in a series of scathing satires, he accused of being an unworthy priest, a homosexual, a gambler, and a writer of indecent verse who used a purposefully obscure language.

Quevedo lampooned his rival by writing a sonnet, Aguja de navegar cultos, which listed words from Góngora's lexicon: "He who would like to be a culto poet in just one day, / must the following jargon learn: / Fulgores, arrogar, joven, presiente / candor, construye, métrica, armonía..."[7] Quevedo satirized Góngora's physique, particularly his prominent nose in the sonnet A una nariz, (To a Nose).

About that time, Quevedo grew very close to Pedro Téllez-Girón, 3rd Duke of Osuna, one of the great statesmen and generals of the age, whom he accompanied as secretary to Italy in 1613, carrying out a number of missions for him which took him to Nice, Venice, and finally back to Madrid.

He then returned to Italy in the Duke's entourage, where he was entrusted with putting in order the Viceroyalty's finances, and sent on several espionage-related missions to the rival Republic of Venice, although it is now believed these did not involve him personally.

With the fall from favor of Osuna in 1620, Quevedo lost his patron and protector and was exiled to Torre de Juan Abad (Ciudad Real), whose fiefdom his mother had purchased for him.

He found consolation to his failed ambitions as a courtier in the Stoicism of Seneca, his study and commentary turning him into one of the main exponents of Spanish Neostoicism.

The elevation of Philip IV to the throne in 1621 meant the end of Quevedo's exile, and his return to Court and politics, now under the influence of the new minister, the Count-Duke of Olivares.

(The Court of the rightful revenge, erected against the writings of Francisco de Quevedo, teacher of errors, doctor in shamelessness, licensed in buffoonery, bachelor in dirt, university professor of vices and proto-devil among men.)

In the monastery Quevedo dedicated himself to reading, as recounted in his Carta moral e instructiva (Moral and instructive letter), written to his friend, Adán de la Parra, depicting hour by hour his prison life ("From ten to eleven, I spend my time in prayer and devotions, and from eleven to noon I read good and bad authors; because there is no book, despicable as it can be, that does not contain something good...").

[9] Quevedo, who was frail and very ill when he left from his confinement in 1643, resigned from royal court definitively to retire at Torre de Juan Abad.

[14] His poetry gives evidence not only of his literary gifts but also of his erudition (Quevedo had studied Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, French, and Italian).

"[16] The first four lines run as follows: His work also employed mythological themes, typical of the age,[16] though it also employs satirical elements, for example in his To Apollo chasing Daphne: Quevedo's poetry also includes pieces such as an imagined dedication to Columbus by a piece of the ship in which the navigator had discovered the New World: The only novel written by Quevedo is the picaresque novel Vida del Buscón or El Buscón (Full original title: Historia de la vida del Buscón, llamado Don Pablos, ejemplo de vagamundos y espejo de tacaños) published in 1626.

His works on literary criticism include La culta latiniparla (The Craze for Speaking Latin) and Aguja de navegar cultos (Compass for Navigating among Euphuistic Reefs).

[23] In the Dreams, the somewhat misanthropic Quevedo showcased his antipathy for numerous groups, including but not limited to tailors, innkeepers, alchemists, astrologers, women, the Genovese, Protestants, constables, accountants, Jews, doctors, dentists, apothecaries, and hypocrites of all kinds.

La Isla de los Monopantos, a virulently antisemitic tale in the book portraying a secret Jewish plot to destroy Christendom with the assistance of the Monopanto chief Pragas Chincollos (a satirical portrayal of the Count-Duke of Olivares), is believed by some to have been a key influence in Hermann Goedsche's novel Biarritz, one of the unacknowledged sources of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

[3] According to writers Javier Martínez-Pinna and Diego Peña "in his writings he always manifested an obsession for the defense of the country, being convinced of the necessity and inevitability of the hegemony of Spain in the world, something that in the full Spanish decline had to do him much harm.

It was also integrated in the tradition of laus Hispaniae, established by San Isidoro and used by Quevedo himself to try to recover the values that he thought, made the nation powerful.

In a series of works like his defended Spain, he praised the greatness of his most prestigious compatriots, highlighting the Spanish superiority in the field of letters, visible in authors such as Fray Luis de León, Jorge Manrique or Garcilaso de la Vega, but also in the art of war, making possible the victory of Castilian weapons in their confrontations against Arabs and other European powers during the sixteenth century.