Góngora and his lifelong rival, Francisco de Quevedo, are widely considered the most prominent Spanish poets of all time.

Ultimately, in 1617 through the influence of the Duke of Lerma, he was appointed honorary chaplain to King Philip III of Spain, but did not enjoy the honour long.

Both poets composed many bitter, satirical pieces attacking one another, with Quevedo criticizing Góngora's penchant for flattery, his large nose, and his passion for gambling.

Culteranismo apparently existed in stark contrast with conceptismo, another movement of the Baroque period which is characterized by a witty style, wordplay, simple vocabulary, and conveying multiple meanings in as few words as possible.

Quevedo lampooned his rival by writing a sonnet, "Aguja de navegar cultos," which listed words from Góngora's lexicon: "He would like to be a culto poet in just one day, / must the following jargon learn: / Fulgores, arrogar, joven, presiente / candor, construye, métrica, armonía..."[8] Quevedo actually mocked Góngora's style in several sonnets, including "Sulquivagante, pretensor de Estolo.

"[9] This anti-Gongorist sonnet mocks the supposed unintelligibility of culteranismo and its widespread use of flowery neologisms, including sulquivagante (he who plies the seas; to travel without a clear destination); speluncas ("caves"); surculos (sprouts, scions).

[10] Góngora also had a penchant for apparent breaks in syntactical flow, as he overturned the limitations of syntax, making the hyperbaton the most prominent feature of his poetry.

Many of these words are quite common today, such as adolescente, asunto, brillante, construir, eclipse, emular, erigir, fragmento, frustrar, joven, meta, and porción.

Góngora also wrote sonnets concerning various subjects of an amatory, satirical, moral, philosophical, religious, controversial, laudatory, and funereal nature.

In addition, Góngora composed one of his most ambitions works, El Panegírico al Duque de Lerma (1617), a poem in 79 royal octaves.

Vicuña's work was appropriated by the Spanish Inquisition[clarification needed] and was later surpassed by an edition by Gonzalo de Hozes in 1633.

"[24] García Lorca presented a lecture called "La imagen poética en don Luís de Góngora" at the Ateneo in Seville in 1927.

[25] In this lecture, García Lorca paid Jean Epstein the compliment of comparing the film director with Góngora as an authority on images.

As an example he mentioned "a Spanish poet who suffered an illness; though he recovered, he was left so oblivious to his past life that he did not believe the tales and tragedies he had written were his own".

[27] The historian Carl Gebhardt wrote that "this was probably Góngora, whose works Spinoza possessed, and who lost his memory a year before his death".

(1998) contemporary Latin American poets have a heated debate about Góngora's and Quevedo's role in defining the Spanish empire through their works.

The musical group Dead Can Dance used an English translation of Góngora's Da bienes Fortuna as the lyrics for the song "Fortune Presents Gifts Not According to the Book" on their 1990 album Aion.