ABSTRACT
Comicality is not exactly a topic or a thematic unity, yet it influences both, and conditions the author's treatment of ideas. The Lucianesque satires should be studied as examples of comicality in the work of Quedevo, who sought to bring together moral gravity and laughter following classical models, and hence they also show his appreciation of Democritus and Heraclitus. And the example of the satires also urges us to take into consideration other very extensive sections of Quevedo's satires and burlesques: the Buscón, the joking memorials and premáticas, the broad production of verse collected in musas 5 and 6 (Terpsichore and Thalia), the jácaras ('comic ballads of low life'), the entremeses, and the burlesque parodies in the manner of the Poema heroico de las necedades y locuras de Orlando. To ignore this facet of Quevedo would be to mutilate his image as a multiform writer.
