All of Gacián's work is in prose and has a didactic-moral orientation. His work meditates on the human condition in a double aspect, proposing models of conduct and behavior schemes to achieve moral excellence, and on the other subjecting human weaknesses, and their moral miseries, to a cruel dissection that distances their characters from that ideal perfection. Both purposes occur simultaneously in all his works, but the first produce works such as El héroe, El político, and the Oráculo manual, while the second is more clearly perceptible in El Crititcón.

His style contains sharp and acute thinking, condensed into short incisive concepts or formulas 'conceptisas'  that take on the succinct depth of an aphorism, catching the reader's attention and shaking his conscience with quick, penetrating touches. All words are in mutual tension, subjected to an immense creative effort, often forced to work simultaneously with various meanings, in accordance with the conceptual ideal. Although Gracián's ideology is radically pessimistic, as was that of many seventeenth-century writers, this pessimism is not paralyzing. On the contrary, Gracián tenaciously fought both with his works and with his preaching to improve the human condition. His promptings, advice, and role models were always inspired by religious hope.

El héroe (on Machiavelli)

El político Don Fernando el Católico

El discreto

El Criticón

Agudeza de arte de ingenio

Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia

Critilo meets his son Andrenio after surviving a shipwreck. The father takes his son to see the world. In the analyzed fragment, both attend the representation of a theatrical farce, a symbol of the farce that is life.

Fiction

Fantasy

Short Story

The Baroque is period characterized by a cultural development unwind due to the Counter-Reformation and the Council of Trent. In many respects, Baroque supposes a  return to the Middle Ages, ceasing the clear Renaissance separation between the natural and the supernatural. The Inquisition watches over any intellectual activity that does not highlight or otherwise avoids the transcendental. Scientific research and rational philosophy practically end in Spain, with Theology taking their place. Superstition supplants religiosity in people's minds and so-called miracles ubiquitously flourish. 

In this context, the Spanish genius, unable to create intellectually in other areas, takes refuge in the aesthetic task, with an impressive list of painters, sculptors, and architects who live in this era. The literature demonstrates the same splendor. When Cervantes was still alive,  other outstanding authors such as Lope de Vega, Góngora, and Quevedo wrote their literary masterpieces. Shortly after this giants of the Spanish literature history died, began his careers the last genius of the Baroque era, Calderón de la Barca and Gracián. Somehow, the limitation in freedom of expression is offset by an increase in artifice and exaggeration in style, subjecting the language of the Renaissance to an intense elaboration that gives rise to the two great movements of the time: the 'culteranismo' and the 'conceptismo'.

Baroque

Publication of the Romancero general

Second part of Guzmán de Alfarche,  by Mateo Alemán

Second parto fo Guzmán de Alfarche,  by Mateo Alemán

Propaplladia, by Bartolomé de Torres Naharro

Retrato de la Lozana andaluza, by Francisco Delicado

Flores de poetas ilustres, compiled by Pedro de Espinosa

Arte nuevo de hacer comedias, and second part of Comedies, by Lope de Vega

The Polifemo, by Luis de Góngora

Novelas ejemplares, by Miguel de Cervantes

Rimas sacras and fourth part of Comedies, by Lope de Vega

Viaje del Parnaso, by Miguel de Cervantes

Fuenteovejuna, by Lope de Vega

The Buscón, by Quevedo

La dama duende, and Casa con dos puertas mala es de guardar, by Calderón

El burlador de Sevilla, by Tirso de Molina

El burlador the Sevilla, by Tirso de Molina

La vida es sueño, by Calderón de la Barca

Soledades, by Góngora

Empresas políticas, by Saavedra Fajardo

Closing of the theaters until 1649

El Parnaso español, by Quevedo

Las Meninas by Velazquez

Giordano Bruno is burned at the stake

King Lear and Macbeth, by William Shakesperare

Spanish Bites

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El Criticón (1651)

By Baltasar Gracián

Time Period: Baroque

Genre: Fiction, Fantasy, Short Story

Spanish Bites

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