Background
He was born in Treceño, Cantabria in 1481, to a noble family.
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He was born in Treceño, Cantabria in 1481, to a noble family.
He became a page at the royal court.
In 1504 he became a Franciscan.
He later accompanied Charles on the expedition to Tunis (1535) and obtained various bishoprics.
El Relox de principes (1521) (Diall of Princes, translated in 1535) is an apocryphal autobiography of Marcus Aurelius, the "perfect prince, " designed to serve as a moral guide for rulers.
It contains the invented legend, later used by La Fontaine, of the Danube peasant who shames the Roman Senate with his discourse on the injustice of conquest.
Guevara was actually criticizing the Spanish conquest of America. The Menosprecio de la corte y alabanza de la aldea (Dispraise of the Life of a Courtier and Commendation of a Labouryng Man, translated by Richard Grafton, 1548), appeared in 1539 and contained all the usual florid commonplaces pertaining to this typical Renaissance theme.
The Aviso de privados y doctrina de cortesanos ("Warning to Favorites and Guide for Courtiers"), published in the same year, is somewhat similar in its presentation.
Since these letters were used to present moral points and were never intended to be sent, they might be better classified as being among the first European essays.
The letters are not of outstanding value as essays, however.
Similarly his elaborate and overblown style and his frequent use of alliteration, antithesis, and sonorous verbal comparisons throughout his work, seem more an expression of fashionable artifice than of original thought.
