Baltasar Gracián y Morales, SJ was a Spanish Jesuit and baroque prose writer. He assumed the vows of the Jesuits in 1633 and dedicated himself to teaching in various Jesuit schools. He spent time in Huesca, where he befriended the local scholar Vincencio Juan de Lastanosa, who helped him achieve an important milestone in his intellectual upbringing. He acquired fame as a preacher, although some of his oratorical displays, such as reading a letter sent from Hell from the pulpit, were frowned upon by his superiors.
He was named Rector of the Jesuit college of Tarragona and wrote works proposing models for courtly conduct such as El héroe (The Hero), El político (The Politician), and El discreto (The Discreet One). During the Spanish war with Catalonia and France, he was chaplain of the army that liberated Lleida in 1646.
In 1651, he published the first part of the Criticón (Faultfinder) without the permission of his superiors, whom he disobeyed repeatedly. This attracted the Society's displeasure. Ignoring the reprimands, he published the third part of Criticón in 1657, and as a result was sanctioned and exiled to Graus. He tried to leave the order but was unsuccessful. He died in 1658 and is buried in Tarazona near Zaragoza in the province of Aragon.
This is a collection of essays which underscores Gracian's importance as a site of textual production for examining questions regarding subject formation, sign systems and semiotic interpretation, technologies of social control, and social ideology Gracián is the most representative writer of the Spanish Baroque literary style known as Conceptismo (Conceptism), of which he was the most important theoretician; his Agudeza y arte de ingenio (Wit and the Art of Inventiveness) is at once a poetic, a rhetoric and an anthology of the conceptist style. The Aragonese village where he was born (Belmonte de Calatayud), changed its name to Belmonte de Gracian in his honour.
He was named Rector of the Jesuit college of Tarragona and wrote works proposing models for courtly conduct such as El héroe (The Hero), El político (The Politician), and El discreto (The Discreet One). During the Spanish war with Catalonia and France, he was chaplain of the army that liberated Lleida in 1646.
In 1651, he published the first part of the Criticón (Faultfinder) without the permission of his superiors, whom he disobeyed repeatedly. This attracted the Society's displeasure. Ignoring the reprimands, he published the third part of Criticón in 1657, and as a result was sanctioned and exiled to Graus. He tried to leave the order but was unsuccessful. He died in 1658 and is buried in Tarazona near Zaragoza in the province of Aragon.
This is a collection of essays which underscores Gracian's importance as a site of textual production for examining questions regarding subject formation, sign systems and semiotic interpretation, technologies of social control, and social ideology Gracián is the most representative writer of the Spanish Baroque literary style known as Conceptismo (Conceptism), of which he was the most important theoretician; his Agudeza y arte de ingenio (Wit and the Art of Inventiveness) is at once a poetic, a rhetoric and an anthology of the conceptist style. The Aragonese village where he was born (Belmonte de Calatayud), changed its name to Belmonte de Gracian in his honour.
