The Art of Worldly Wisdom (Baltasar Gracian) (revisit)
The Art of Worldly Wisdom
(Spanish: Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia)
Baltasar Gracián y Morales, better known as Baltasar Gracian.[1]
The Art of Worldly Wisdom
The Art of Worldly Wisdom (Spanish: Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia) is a book written in 1647 by Baltasar Gracián y Morales, better known as Baltasar Gracian.[1] It is a collection of 300 maxims, each with a commentary, on various topics giving advice and guidance on how to live fully, advance socially, and be a better person, that became popular throughout Europe.[2]
Title page of The Art of Worldly Wisdom
It was translated by Joseph Jacobs (London and New York City, Macmillan and co., 1892.[3] Other editions are also available from:
Nayika, 2009, ISBN 978-0-955-95831-1; edited with a light commentary/footnotes
Shambhala Publications, 2004, ISBN 1-59030141-2
Christopher Maurer (Doubleday) 1992
Dover Publications, 2005, ISBN 0-48644034-6
Google Books as a free digital edition via partnership with Princeton University Library
The Art of Worldly Wisdom
by Balthasar Gracian
translated by Joseph Jacobs
[1892]
Part life-coach, part Machiavelli, part Yoda, Balthasar Gracian [1601-1658], a Jesuit priest, wrote this collection of pithy sayings four centuries ago. Gracian speaks to the twenty-first century as well as the seventeenth. It's only a matter of time before someone markets Gracian's life advice to busy executives, like Sun Tzu or the Book of Five Rings (if it hasn't been already). In the meantime, Gracian can be our little secret.
Jacobs, the translator, is also the author of many books of folklore, etexts of which can also be found at this site, for instance, Celtic Fairy Tales, English Fairy Tales, and Indian Fairy Tales.
Production note: I have arbitrarily divided the body of the translation into files of 50 sayings each: Jacobs recommended reading the book 50 sayings at a time.
The Art of Worldly Wisdom public domain audiobook at LibriVox
The Art of Worldly Wisdom
Baltasar Gracián (1601 - 1658)
Translated by Joseph Jacobs (1854 - 1916)
300 short maxims by Spanish Jesuit Baltasar Gracian (1601-1658). The advice is still useful and insightful for our modern world. Gracian was considered one of the most interesting philosophers by both Nietzsche und Schopenhauer, and the latter translated The Art of Worldly Wisdom into German. This English translation was done by the famous Australian fairy-tale collector Joseph Jacobs (1854-1916). - Summary by Sandra Schmit
Genre(s): Early Modern
Language: English
SECTION CHAPTER READER TIME
Play
01 Dedication, Preface and Testimonia Sonia
00:12:35
Play
02 Introduction cathar maiden
00:39:03
Play
03 To the reader; Maxims 1-10 cathar maiden
00:08:36
Play
04 Maxims 11-20 cathar maiden
00:09:10
Play
05 Maxims 21-30 cathar maiden
00:07:55
Play
06 Maxims 31-40 cathar maiden
00:08:33
Play
07 Maxims 41-50 Sonrisa Jones
00:09:06
Play
08 Maxims 51-60 Sonrisa Jones
00:07:24
Play
09 Maxims 61-70 Sonrisa Jones
00:09:50
Play
10 Maxims 71-80 Sonrisa Jones
00:08:12
Play
11 Maxims 81-90 Sonrisa Jones
00:08:28
Play
12 Maxims 91-100 Sonrisa Jones
00:06:39
Play
13 Maxims 101-110 Sonrisa Jones
00:09:57
Play
14 Maxims 111-120 Sonrisa Jones
00:09:21
Play
15 Maxims 121-130 Sonrisa Jones
00:09:07
Play
16 Maxims 131-140 Ken Masters
00:11:35
Play
17 Maxims 141-150 Wayne Cooke
00:10:48
Play
18 Maxims 151-160 Tina Ding
00:11:20
Play
19 Maxims 161-170 Tina Ding
00:10:06
Play
20 Maxims 171-180 Ken Masters
00:11:47
Play
21 Maxims 181-190 Sonrisa Jones
00:09:51
Play
22 Maxims 191-200 Sonrisa Jones
00:08:56
Play
23 Maxims 201-210 Sonrisa Jones
00:09:51
Play
24 Maxims 211-220 Sonrisa Jones
00:09:17
Play
25 Maxims 221-230 Sonrisa Jones
00:09:06
Play
26 Maxims 231-240 Sonrisa Jones
00:09:05
Play
27 Maxims 241-250 Sonrisa Jones
00:08:25
Play
28 Maxims 251-260 Sonrisa Jones
00:09:24
Play
29 Maxims 261-270 Davi Bicudo
00:07:25
Play
30 Maxims 271-280 Sonrisa Jones
00:09:50
Play
31 Maxims 281-290 Sonrisa Jones
00:07:49
Play
32 Maxims 291-300
Baltasar Gracián
Baltasar Gracián y Morales
Biography
The son of a doctor, in his childhood Gracián lived with his uncle, who was a priest. He studied at a Jesuit school in 1621 and 1623 and theology in Zaragoza. He was ordained in 1627 and took his final vows in 1635.
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 Catalan Revolt, he was chaplain for the Spanish army that lifted the French siege of Lleida (Lérida) in 1646.[2]
In 1651, he published the first part of the El Criticón (Faultfinder) without the permission of his superiors, whom he disobeyed repeatedly. That attracted the Society's displeasure. Ignoring the reprimands, he published the second part of Criticón in 1657 and so he was sanctioned and exiled to Graus in early 1658. Soon, Gracián wrote to apply for membership in another religious order. His demand was not met, but his sanction was reduced. In April 1658, he was sent to several minor positions under the college of Tarazona. His physical decline prevented him from attending the provincial congregation of Calatayud and on 6 December 1658 Gracián died in Tarazona, near Zaragoza in the Kingdom of Aragón.[3]
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.
In 1985, the Aragonese village in which he was born, Belmonte de Calatayud (Belmonte del Río Perejiles) officially changed its name to Belmonte de Gracián in his honour.[4]
The following is a summary of the El criticón, reduced almost to the point of a sketch, of a complex work that demands detailed study.
Critilo, man of the world, is shipwrecked on the coast of the island of Santa Elena, where he meets Andrenio, the natural man, who has grown up completely ignorant of civilization. Together they undertake a long voyage to the Isle of Immortality, travelling the long and prickly road of life. In the first part, "En la primavera de la niñez" ("In the Spring of Childhood"), they join the royal court, where they suffer all manner of disappointments; in the second part, "En el otoño de la varonil edad" ("In the Autumn of the Age of Manliness"), they pass through Aragon, where they visit the house of Salastano (an anagram of the name of Gracián's friend Lastanosa), and travel to France, which the author calls the "wasteland of Hipocrinda", populated entirely by hypocrites and dunces, ending with a visit to a house of lunatics. In the third part, "En el invierno de la vejez" ("In the Winter of Old Age"), they arrive in Rome, where they encounter an academy where they meet the most inventive of men, arriving finally at the Isle of Immortality. He is intelligent and contributed greatly to the world. One of his most famous phrases is "Respect yourself if you would have others respect you."[5]
The Art of Worldly Wisdom
Wikiquote has quotations related to Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia.
Gracián's style, generically called conceptism, is characterized by ellipsis and the concentration of a maximum of significance in a minimum of form, an approach referred to in Spanish as agudeza (wit), and which is brought to its extreme in the Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia (literally Manual Oracle and Art of Discretion, commonly translated as The Art of Worldly Wisdom), which is almost entirely composed of three hundred maxims with commentary. He constantly plays with words: each phrase becomes a puzzle, using the most diverse rhetorical devices.
Its appeal has endured: in 1992, Christopher Maurer's translation of this book remained 18 weeks (2 weeks in first place) in The Washington Post's list of Nonfiction General Best Sellers. It has sold nearly 200,000 copies.
[[ read through this list ]]
No comments:
Post a Comment