Baltasar Gracián y Morales (January 8, 1601 - December 6, 1658), Spanish prose writer, was born at Calatayud (Aragon). January 8 is the 8th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Events January 1 - Windows Win32 FILETIME epoch at 00:00:00 UTC. February 8 - Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, rebels against Elizabeth I of England - revolt is quickly crushed February 25 - Robert Devereux beheaded Jesuit Matteo Ricci arrives in China Bad harvest in Russia due to rainy summer Dutch... December 6 is the 340th day (341st on leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Events January 13 - Edward Sexby, who has plotted against Oliver Cromwell, dies in Tower of London February 6 - Swedish troops of Charles X Gustav of Sweden cross from Sweden to Denmark over frozen sea May 1 - Publication of Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial and The Garden of Cyrus by Thomas Browne September... Calatayud (2002 pop. ... Capital Zaragoza Area  – Total  – % of Spain Ranked 4th  47 719 km²  9,4% Population  – Total (2003)  – % of Spain  – Density Ranked 11th  1 217 514  2,9%  25,51/km² Demonym  – English  – Spanish  Aragonese  aragonés Statute of Autonomy August 16, 1982 ISO 3166-2 AR Parliamentary representation  – Congress seats  – Senate seats...

Little is known of his personal history except that on May 14, 1619, he entered the Society of Jesus, and that ultimately he became rector of the Jesuit college at Tarazona, where he died. May 14 is the 134th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (135th in leap years). ... Events May 13 - Dutch statesman Johan van Oldenbarnevelt is executed in The Hague after having been accused of treason. ... The Society of Jesus — also known by its Latin name Societas Iesu or its English variant Jesuit Order — is a Christian religious order of the Roman Catholic Church in direct service to the Pope. ...

His principal works are:

• El Héroe (1630), which describes in apophthegmatic phrases the qualities of the ideal man
• the Arte de ingenio, tratado de la Agudeza (1642), republished six years afterwards under the title of Agudeza, y arte de ingenio (1648), a system of rhetoric in which the principles of conceptismo as opposed to culteranismo are inculcated
• El Discreto (1645), a delineation of the typical courtier
• El Oraculo manual y arte de prudencia (1647), a system of rules for the conduct of life
• El Criticón (1651, 1653, 1657), an ingenious philosophical allegory of human existence

The only publication which bears Gracián's name is El Comulgatorio (1655); his more important books were issued under the pseudonym of Lorenzo Gracin (possibly a brother of the writer) or under the anagram of Gracian de Marlones Gracián was punished for publishing without his superior's permission El Criticón (in which Defoe is alleged to have found the germ of Robinson Crusoe): but no objection was taken to its substance. An adage is a short, but memorable saying, which holds some important fact of experience that is considered true by many people, or it has gained some credibility through its long use. ... Rhetoric (from Greek ρητωρ, rhêtôr, orator) is one of the three original liberal arts or trivium (the other members are dialectic and grammar). ... Daniel Defoe Daniel Defoe ( 1660 – April 24, 1731) was an English writer and journalist, who first gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. ... Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published in 1719 and sometimes regarded as the first novel in English. ...

He has been excessively praised by Schopenhauer, whose appreciation of the author induced him to translate the Oráculo manual, and he has been unduly depreciated by Ticknor and others. He is an acute thinker and observer, misled by his systematic misanthropy and by his fantastic literary theories. Arthur Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer (February 22, 1788 – September 21, 1860) was a German philosopher born in Gdańsk (Danzig), Poland. ... George Ticknor (August 1, 1791 - January 26, 1871), was an American teacher and author. ...

See Karl Borinski, Baltasar Gracián und die Hoflitteratur in Deutschlaed (Halle, 1894); Benedetto Croce, I Trattatisti Italians del conceltismo e Baltasar Gracián (Napoli, 1899); Narciso José Lin y Heredia, Baltasar Gracián (Madrid, 1902). Schopenhauer and Joseph Jacobs have respectively translated the Oráculo manual into German and English.

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... The Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1911) in many ways represents the sum of knowledge at the beginning of the 20th century. ...