Gongorism, also known as Culteranismo, is a literary style created in the XVII by the Spanish poet Luis de Góngora y Argote, from whom this specific style was named after. This form of writing, used mainly in poetry but also in some prose texts, was a huge trend throughout the XVII and XVIII centuries in the Iberian Peninsula, namely in Spain and Portugal, and later also in some South American countries that have Spanish as the official language, as well as in Brazil.
Gongorism can be fitted in the category of Baroque Literature, and his mainly characterized by the excesses that are typical of this current, with a very ornate and composed type of writing, that sometimes becomes hard to understand, and a lot of exaggerations not only in the form of writing itself, but also in the narrative evolution, in an attempt to escape the use of conventional language, and resourcing to many figures of speech, with emphasis on metaphors and hyperboles. The themes were very diverse, although there was a natural inclination at the time to write about Religion and the connection with Nature.
The fact that it was hard to comprehend the meaning of the majority of the texts, and its enigmatic properties, as a form to challenge the culture and intelligence of the readers, in a way that could be perceived as pedantic, made Gongorism a target of severe criticism, especially by the followers of Quevedismo, also known as Conceptismo, a literary style also created by a Spanish writer, Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas.
Despite the critics and strong reactions to it, Gongorism quickly spread through Sapin and Portugal, and sooner it arrived at the colonies both countries possessed in South America, being adopted by many acknowledged writers. Some of the most well-known authors within Gongorism are, for example, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Dámaso Alonso, Francisco Manuel de Melo or Gregório de Matos, among many others.
