Abstract

Gracián, Wit, and the Baroque Age offers a long-awaited thorough and systematic understanding of Baltasar Gracián's thought. Emphasizing Gracián's theories on wit, this book shows that these theories are meant to explain and give method to every apprehension of ideas; it orderly unveils Gracián's art of invention. It also places this art within Gracián's whole comprehensive doctrine of séñorío, that is, mastery. This book is grounded on an exhaustive analysis of Gracián's complete works, direct reviews of classical and baroque theories of wit, and of baroque exemplars of eloquence. This book provides a fair and close view of the baroque rhetoric, at last.