Baltasar Gracián y Morales
Baltasar Gracián y Morales was a notable Spanish Jesuit philosopher and writer, born into a religious family that significantly influenced his education. He joined the Society of Jesus in 1619, where he studied humanities and theology, later becoming a presbyter and teaching Latin and moral theology. Gracián's literary career began with his first book, *El héroe*, which critiques the qualities necessary for virtuous leadership, paralleling the themes presented in Machiavelli's *The Prince*. Over his life, he produced several significant works, including *El criticón*, a philosophical novel that uses allegory to explore societal hypocrisy and the moral challenges of human existence.
Despite his intellectual acclaim, Gracián faced conflict with his religious superiors, particularly after the publication of *The Critick*, which led to punishment and a decline in his health. His writings, characterized by wit and a focus on prudence, have garnered admiration from notable thinkers such as Voltaire and Nietzsche, securing his legacy as a key figure in Baroque literature. Gracián's work reflects a deep engagement with the human condition and remains influential beyond the Spanish-speaking world.
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Subject Terms
Baltasar Gracián y Morales
Spanish writer
- Born: January 8, 1601
- Birthplace: Belmonte de Calatayud, Saragossa, Spain
- Died: December 6, 1658
- Place of death: Tarazona, Saragossa, Spain
Gracián was a major thinker in Spanish Golden Age letters. His writings provide well-defined theories about aesthetic techniques, politics, language, and social behavior. His work is key to understanding artistic and intellectual production during the Baroque period.
Early Life
Baltasar Gracián y Morales (bahl-tah-SAHR grahth-YAHN ee moh-RAH-lays) was born into a family whose religious beliefs had a decisive impact on his education. Several of his brothers were members of religious orders. His father, physician Francisco Gracián, had a brother, Antonio Gracián, who was a cleric. Baltasar Gracián was educated in Toledo with his uncle and entered the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in 1619. In 1635, he took the four solemn vows the Jesuits required.
Gracián studied philosophy and humanities in the Jesuit College of Calatayud, and theology in Saragossa, where he moved to in 1623. After finishing his studies, he was named presbyter and began teaching Latin grammar in the College of Calatayud. From 1631 to 1636, he taught moral theology and philosophy in Lérida, Gandía, and Valencia. After this, he was sent to the convent of Huesca as a preacher and a confessor. The years in Huesca afforded him ample occasion for reflection and intellectual stimulation. It was there that Gracián met his future patron, the erudite nobleman Vicente Juan de Lastanosa, whose social entourage and impressive library gave Gracián the opportunity to strengthen both his intellectual training and his knowledge of the human condition.
Life’s Work
Gracián’s first book was El héroe (pb. 1637; The Hero of Lorenzo: Or, The Way to Eminencie and Perfection, a Piece of Serious Spanish Wit, 1652; better known as The Hero ), which he published under the name Lorenzo Gracián to hide his real identity. This text, a reaction to Niccolò Machiavelli’s Il principe (wr. 1513, pb. 1532; The Prince, 1640), depicts the different qualities that a gentleman must possess to lead a virtuous life, among which are good judgment, taste, wit, and grace. This was to become the basis for his philosophy unifying the intellect and aesthetics.
It was during the years after the publication of The Hero that the first disputes arose between Gracián and other members of his order. He was sharply criticized for publishing his work without the required authorization from the members of the order. Yet, in 1640, even with this dispute, he became the confessor of Francesco Carafa, the duke of Nocera, with whom he moved to Saragossa and traveled to Madrid. In Madrid, he encountered for the first time the society of politicians and courtesans he would later criticize. Nocera was imprisoned soon after for opposing the policy of the count-duke of Olivares (court favorite of King Philip IV) regarding the war in Catalonia. Olivares’s severity, in part, pushed Gracián to write his harshly critical treatises attacking a corrupt political world governed by hypocrisy, intrigues, and dissimulation.
Gracián’s next treatise, El político Don Fernando el Católico (1640; the statesman Ferdinand the Catholic), which was published under the same pseudonym, offers an example of a virtuous man based on the figure of the Catholic king Ferdinand II (1578-1637). Ferdinand served as a model for Gracián because of his good judgment as a statesman and because he had an idealized vision of the past. Gracián approved of Ferdinand’s character because the values that the king symbolized were difficult to find in Gracián’s own time period.
Gracián spent several years in Madrid preaching, and he soon won fame among the intellectual elite. In the 1640’s, he frequented the literary and aristocratic circles of the capital. He moved to Catalonia during the war and served as a chaplain for the army. From the battlefields, he went to Tarragona, where he served as rector of the Jesuit College and continued to preach.
In 1644, in Valencia, he worked on the publication of El discreto (1646; The Compleat Gentleman: Or, A Description of the Several Qualifications, Both Natural and Acquired, That Are Necessary to Form a Great Man, 1726; better known as The Compleat Gentleman ), again under his pseudonym. As he did in his last work, he explores here the notion of “prudence” and the qualities necessary to be discrete. He pursues the theme of prudence in his collection of three hundred aphorisms entitled Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia (1647; The Courtiers Manual Oracle: Or, The Art of Prudence , 1685).
His treatise Agudeza y arte de ingenio (pb. 1648; The Mind’s Wit and Art , 1962) is a reworking and an expansion of Arte de ingenio (pb. 1642; art of the mind). Here he codifies the rhetorical theories and perspectives of different authors from classical antiquity to his time period, including Seneca, Cicero, Camoens, Quevedo y Villegas, and Góngora. Arte de ingenio sheds lights on not only Gracián’s work but also the poetics, the rhetoric, and aesthetics of Baroque literature in general. The key element for this rhetoric lies in the notion of “wit,” which can be viewed as an intellectual and aesthetic method to reveal the illusions of a deceitful reality.
Gracián was in Saragossa when he published the first part of one of his most important works, considered by many his masterpiece, the novel El criticón, which was published in three parts (1651, 1653, 1657; complete translation, The Critick , 1681). For this work, he used the pseudonym García de Marlones, an anagram of his name. The Critick moved into the realm of allegory, following the model established by John Barclay in Euphormionis lusinini satyricon (1603, 1607; Euphormio’s Satyricon, 1954). In this ambitious text, Gracián condensed all of his thought. Divided into three different ages of life, the novel satirizes society’s artificiality, placing reason and willfulness high on the scale of values. Here, Gracián defines the “ideally virtuous man,” while closely examining the morals and traditions of his time as well as its hypocrisy and corruption. Here again he shows the importance of prudence and sought to unmask a world of deceit. The Critick is a clear example of Baroque disillusionment and can be viewed as a philosophical novel, which allegorically depicts human life as a journey. It mixes genres including elements of satire, the picaresque, and the Byzantine novel.
During the writing of The Critick, Gracián wrote El comulgatorio (pb. 1655; Sanctuary Meditations , 1875), a devotional text signed with his real name, most likely because of its religious content. This work did not erase the damage that the publication of The Critick had caused Gracián, though it did bring him international praise. In fact, for The Critick, he was severely punished by his superiors and sent into forced confinement and a diet of bread and water in Huesca, while a jurist published a highly critical pamphlet attacking The Critick, entitled “Crítica de reflexión” (1658; reflective criticism). With his health weakened from his predicament and tarnished reputation, Gracián died that year in Tarazona.
Significance
Though Gracián was not a prolific writer (he published seven books during his lifetime), he is considered one of the most important thinkers of Spanish letters. His relevance went beyond national borders, mostly because his books have been widely translated. Among his most fervent admirers were Voltaire, François de La Rochefoucauld, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Arthur Schopenhauer, who translated Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia into German.
Gracián’s life serves as an excellent example of the life of a Baroque thinker who was able to synthesize the movements of his time in a didactic project. His interest in pedagogy, which was in accordance with the ideals of his order, can be found throughout his texts and his career. Furthermore, his work is clear evidence of the solid literary and religious culture that he possessed.
Bibliography
Acker, Thomas S. The Baroque Vortex: Velázquez, Calderón, and Gracián Under Philip IV. New York: Peter Lang, 2000. Acker examines similarities found in the works of Diego Velázquez and Pedro Calderón de la Barca and Baltasar Gracián. The study shows how the literature and painting of the time drew from the same sources.
Gracián y Morales, Baltasar. The Mind’s Wit and Art. Translated by Leland Hugh Chambers. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Michigan, 1962. A Gracián treatise, translated as part of a doctoral dissertation. Includes a bibliography.
Sanchez, Francisco J. An Early Bourgeois Literature in Golden Age Spain: Lazarillo de Tormes, Guzman de Alfarache and Baltasar Gracián. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. Sánchez examines works by Baltasar Gracián and well-known picaresque narratives including the anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes and Mateo Aleman’s Guzman de Alfarache. This study analyzes the concepts of the Christian person, culture and life as well as wealth and the “bourgeois self” while revealing the historical underpinnings of the new bourgeois literature.
Spadaccini, Nicholas, and Jenaro Talens, eds. Rhetoric and Politics: Baltasar Gracián and the New World Order. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. Edited volume of essays that examine Gracián’s writings on rhetoric and public life in the light of current events and the “New World Order.” The collection includes studies that analyze Gracián’s modernity, the concept of the modern subject, the art of public representation, symbolic wealth as well as ethical concerns.
Woods, Michael J. Gracian Meets Gongora: The Theory and Practice of Wit. Oxford, England: Aris & Philips, 1995. Woods analyzes the influence of Gracián’s theories of wit and tropes on the play of language by poet Luis de Góngora y Argote, a contemporary.
Zárate Ruiz, Arturo. Gracian, Wit, and the Baroque Age. New York: Peter Lang, 1996. Examining Gracián’s theories on wit, Zárate Ruiz argues that these moral and logical theories are designed to furnish a system for the mind’s apprehension of ideas. The study includes an analysis of Gracián’s complete works concluding that Gracián’s system is an important contribution to the theory of rhetoric.