text: At the age of 22, Quiroga became interested in poetry, discovering the work of Leopoldo Lugones, with whom he would later become great friends, and of Edgar Allan Poe. This led him to dabble in various forms and styles of poetic expression himself: post-romanticism, symbolism and modernism. He soon began to publish his poems in his home town. While studying and working, he collaborated with publications such as La Revista and La Reforma, improving his style and making a name for himself.
  During the Carnival of 1898, the young poet met his first love, a girl named Mary Esther Jurkovski, who would inspire two of his most important works: Las sacrificadas (1920; The Slaughtered) and Una estación de amor (1912; A Season of Love). However, the young girl's Jewish parents disapproved of the relationship on the grounds that Quiroga was a Gentile, and the couple were forced to separate.
  In his home town, he founded a magazine titled Revista de Salto (1899).  In the same year, his stepfather committed suicide by shooting himself; Quiroga witnessed the death. With the money he received as inheritance he embarked on a four-month trip to Paris, which turned out to be a failure: he returned to Uruguay hungry and disheartened.
  Consistory of the Gay Science and early works