Abstract

"Gracian, Wit, and the Baroque Age" offers a long-awaited thorough and systematic understanding of Baltasar Gracian's thought. Emphasizing Gracian'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 Gracian's art of invention. It also places this art within Gracian's whole comprehensive doctrine of "senorio," that is, mastery. This book is grounded on an exhaustive analysis of Gracian'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."