An hidalgo is a member of the Spanish or Portuguese nobility and are generally exempt from paying taxes. In common usage, however, hidalgos (or the feminine hidalga) are generally considered to be unlanded gentry who have lost their fortune but by birthright retain their status. Though originally denoting a "rich man," the term's colloquial connotations now simply refer to a titled man or woman whose status is not backed up with monetary power. Cervantes refers to Don Quixote as the "Ingeneous Hidalgo," a sobriquet that ably describes his low economic status in combination with his genteel aims.
"Hidalgo" appears in three Stevens' poems. In "A Thought Revolved," a poem in the vein of Stevens' search for a creative substitute for god, the hidalgo appears as a possible image of the leader, the "Son only of man and sun of men;" but, like Don Quixote, he is something of a dreamer, liking the "nobler works of man" and is, thus, for Stevens quite insufficient. In "Description Without a Place," a Stevens' mediation on the ability of language to be its own reality, the "hard hidalgo/ Lives in the mountainous character of his speech," which suggests the hidalgos possibilities as "artificer" or creator of himself and his country. In "An Ordinary Evening in New Haven," Steven's deconstruction of a familiar landscape, the hidalgo becomes an image of permanence, an "abstraction" that "demanded an answering look," which suggests his continuing role as a possible supportive fiction. All in all, Stevens' hidalgo suggests a historical character of titular nobility who at times seems a sufficient and admirable portrayal of man striving for self-creation.