The extraordinarily difficult work of the poet Luis de Góngora y Argote represents the pinnacle of 'conceptismo' in Spanish literature. Góngora took to its maximum expression the conceptual development of the mythological poem, albeit burlesque in tone. His style gradually became more complicated with the studied artifice of twisting the phrase, which unfolds in a multitude of allusive Latinizing periphrases and superimposed tropes.

 His poetry, a reflection of the dissatisfied and somewhat sullen character of the author, departs from reality with a somewhat stoic longing, seeking a refined world whose contemplation is only reached by deciphering the intellectual difficulty of his poetic writings. In landscapes such as Soledades, between fields, riverbanks, and jungles, he shows a radically secular vision of nature, in keeping with Renaissance aesthetics, where the ultimate goal is the perfection of poetic expression.

Soledades simply describes the pilgrimage of a beautiful young nobleman, disheartened by love. The real protagonist of the story are, however,  the landscape, meticulously described, the ordinary objects, and the ordinary people that happen to interact with the nobleman. The author enjoys the display of poetic artifice and the high conceptual complexity of every minute detail of the writing in a very simple and humble atmosphere. Góngora consciously gives full prominence to the landscape, objects, and ordinary people that the pilgrim encounters along the way and leaves the young man and his nobility in the background, advocating, well ahead of his time, the aesthetics of the aesthetic movement later known as modernism.

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Góngora or the heyday of difficult poetry.

Triumph of the concept in the poetry of the Spanish Golden Age.

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