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Ronald H. McKinney, S.J.

THE B A ROQU E CA S U IS TRY

OF B A LTA S A R GRACIA N

ew general histories of the Society of Jesus give more than a brief paragraph or
two to the achievements of the 17th century Spanish Jesuit, Baltasar Gracian
(1601-58). One reason might be the fact that he published the final installment of
his allegorical masterpiece, The Master Critic, in 1657 without the permission of
his superiors, and so he was severely punished.1 According to David Mitchell, they
censored him because he was judged to have shown symptoms of occultism and
had also criticized the fossilization of the Jesuit educational system.2 We might
find it understandable, then, that a Jesuit who asked to leave the Society and died in
solitary confinement before permission was granted might well have future historians of the Society less than enthusiastic to trumpet his accomplishments. Another
reason for this neglect might well be the perception of his personal life by some,
despite the fact that we know little about it. Alban Forcione compares him favorably to the 20th century Latin American writer, Jorge Luis Borges; even though
Virginia Foster points out that Borges himself wrote a vicious poem condemning
both Gracian as a person and his art as well.3
Nevertheless, contemporary scholars outside the Society of Jesus have been
less reticent in their praise regarding the importance of his work. Arturo Ruiz contends that The Master Critic deserves to be considered in the same class as Don
Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, Gullivers Travels, and Candide.4 According to the
noted scholar, Ernst Curtius, Gracians The Minds Wit and Art is the first systematic attempt in history to articulate a theory of literacy mannerism.5 Moreover,
Omar Calabrese calls this same work one of the most fascinating tests in baroque
culturea text that, not surprisingly, has recently returned to the limelight in a dramatic way.6 Indeed, another of Gracians works, a book of maxims entitled The
Art of Worldly Wisdom, was not only a favorite of Nietzsche and Schophenhauer,
but also became a best seller in the 1990s. Accordingly, a group of scholars has
recently published a collection of essays that considers Gracians relevance for the
New World Order following the collapse of Communism around the globe.7
However, their misinterpretation of his work, resulting in their negative assessment
of his achievement, has prompted the present essay.
I contend that Gracians famous book of maxims, considered so
Machiavellian by his critics, can best be understood as an instance of Jesuit casuistry, provided we explain away the latters pejorative connotations. Only a few
scholars like Albert Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin, in their influential The Abuse of
The Modern Schoolman, LXXXI, January 2004

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Casuistry, point out the resemblance between casuistry and the art of the Baroque
era.8 Gracians originality lies in the fact that he not only is a Jesuit casuist of the
first order, but that he also provides the theoretical foundation for his collection of
maxims in his critical account of baroque literature itself. Just as Pascal and the
critics of Jesuit casuistry in the seventeenth century failed to see its baroque character, the same can be said of Gracians critics today.
I will therefore first provide a brief hypothesis concerning the nature of the
relationship between casuistry and the baroque mindset, something that Jonsen
and Toulmin fail to offer their readers. I will make this link through an examination
of the Jesuit way of proceeding. Then I will explore Gracians The Minds Wit
and Art for his theory of baroque art, followed by how The Art of Worldly Wisdom
illustrates this theory in the realm of moral prudence. By making this connection, I
hope to refute contemporary criticisms of Gracians casuistry. I will leave it to
readers themselves, however, to take the further step in seeing Gracian's relevance
for our contemporary world. After all, in a postmodern culture that Calabrese calls
neo-baroque in its orientation,9 we are seeing the rise of a new casuistry.10
THE BAROQUE
To define the baroque today would seem as difficult as defining the postmodern, since both appear to find their identity precisely in resisting our penchant
for facile formulations. It is no wonder, then, that Calabrese and others find the
baroque and the postmodern linked in some analogical or causal way.11
Timothy Hampton, in his introduction to a recently edited collection of essays on
this topic, labels the baroque as a phenomenon defying conventional categories
of periodization and description.12 However, his nominalistic reason for making
this claim (Labeling homogenizes.13) would appear to eliminate every conventional quest to separate historical periods or styles. It is true that every definition
of the baroque will either leave out a trait possessed by some work of art we
want to call baroque, or contain a trait not possessed by some other work we also
want to call baroque. Nevertheless, as long as we keep in mind this fact that
Alices Looking-Glass cake always resists being sliced, we need pragmatically to
adopt Wittgensteins family resemblance notion of a definition or give up talking
altogether about historical periods and styles.
Hampton points out another ambiguity in baroque studies as to whether we
are referring to a particular historical moment (Europe and Latin America in the
late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) or to a particular mode of representation employing paradox, illusionism, precocity, the thematics of melancholy, and
so on.14 The former refers to a specific period in time while the latter points to
some trans-temporal style that can be present in any age whatsoever, hence the reference to postmodern poetics as neo-baroque in character. Those advocating a
trans-temporal definition of style, however, necessarily arrive at it by means of
an inductive survey of the prevailing traits within baroque periods.
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Hampton also indicates that, whether as a period or style, we most often

define the baroque in contrast to what is labeled as classical or neoclassical.15
However, Hampton ignores the issue of whether this contrast is to be understood in terms of dialectical opposites or in terms of a higher level concept containing a lower level one, thus resulting in continuity as well as discontinuity. For
example, Calabrese contrasts the classical values of stability, certainty, unity,
linear interpretation, and normative behavior with the baroque values of instability, uncertainty, fragmentation, and change.16 Nevertheless, and I think rightly
so, he argues that the baroque does not simply consist of those factors opposed
to the classical.17 For he recognizes that the destabilization of a normative system does not result in its elimination altogether, but rather simply makes problematic its ability to authoritatively decide on values. The classical past, for
Calabrese, is thus recycled, but in an ironic manner; its norms are reaffirmed at
the very same time as they are put into question, since the baroque is necessarily
parasitic upon the classical.
Our efforts to define the baroque are further complicated by the evolution of
art history itself. Only in this century, for example, have we differentiated mannerism from the baroque, with some even seeing the latter as a reaction
against the former.18 Moreover, we also have to contend with this disciplines penchant for cross-fertilization, such that a term grounded in the visual arts of architecture and painting can also be transferred to the fields of literature and music as
well.19 Consequently, such transfers make it even more difficult to pin down the
precise meaning of critical concepts relating to the baroque.
And finally, the most problematic feature of proposed definitions of the
baroque is the fact that they often contain pronounced contradictions. For example, Hampton points out the conflict in many baroque works of art between their
exemplification of the absolute power of the state and their representation of the
subjects capacity to challenge tyranny.20 The astute student of the baroque
should therefore come to suspect that this style or period is fond of paradox and
committed to the view that changing circumstances often dictate our values.
I will conclude this discussion of the baroque by assembling continuities
of the Baroque in Spanish and Latin American literature from Roberto
Echevarrias recent study.21 It will serve as our paradigmatic family resemblance
definition of this troublesome concept for the rest of our study. This is not an arbitrary choice, however, since Echevarria often cites Gracians authority in the development of this concept.
Echevarria agrees with Octavio Paz that the purpose of baroque art is to
astonish and astound and so it is productive of many outrageous conceits.22 The
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baroque loves to mix conflicting elements to indicate chaos and confusion, since it
questions ideological commonplaces in the very act of supporting them.23
Indeed, Echevarria argues that the Baroque is not an idealistic art, but an art that is
attached to the coarse and brute materiality of the world with all its contrasts and
contradictions.24 Nevertheless, the baroque does not deny tradition as much as it
exaggerates it; baroque poetic practice consists in an ambiguous homage to the
model, since its monumental presence is still nothing but the setting for the new.25
For example, the baroque combines previous texts by means of a wit that transforms them into something new.26 Thus it may seem ornate and artificial in
comparison to classical symmetry, but it is thoroughly grounded in its classical
heritage at the same time.
THE JESUIT WAY OF PROCEEDING
For centuries it has been a commonplace to connect the Jesuit Order and
Baroque Art.27 If so, we might well anticipate that the same ambiguities and paradoxes surrounding the baroque would also be found in our consideration of the
Jesuit way of proceeding. For such a concept not only has its roots in a specific
period of time (the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries), but is also very much alive
in the way the Order conducts its affairs today.
In the beginning, St. Ignatius seems to have bequeathed to his Order two conflicting ways of proceeding. In The Spiritual Exercises, he tells exercitants that
we must hold fast to the following principle: What seems to me white, I will
believe black if the hierarchical Church so defines.28 And thus Jesuits have always
valued obedience to a central authority. But Ignatius also remarks that these
Exercises must be adapted to the condition of the one who is to engage in them.29
From this and other instructions in the Constitutions, Jesuits have grown to revere
the necessity for flexibility and accommodating their mission to the specific needs
and circumstances of others.
Accordingly, the question arises as to whether there existed some uniform
Baroque style that Jesuit authorities in Rome imposed on the architects and artists
involved with the Orders missions all over the globe.30 Or did the spirit of adapting
to local needs and customs prevail, resulting in a Jesuit art full of pluralistic forms?
Rudolf Wittkower examines the evidence and suggests that, while there did develop a certain measure of uniformity surrounding the use of the Gesu Church in
Rome as a baroque model to imitate, nevertheless Roman authorities were more
concerned with practical, rather than stylistic matters.31 Moreover, he asserts that,
though there were early attempts to establish Jesuit artistic standards, with the
passage of time more liberal views gained ascendancy.32 Finally, he points out an
important creative tension that existed early on: the battle between the artistic
ideals of propriety and delight, or put differently, the conflict between plain austerity (in keeping with the vow of poverty) and lavish decoration.33 In actual practice,
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it seems Jesuits paid only lip service to the former, as their art works became ever
more extravagant over the years.
If Wittkowers insights are accepted, we are left with a puzzling conclusion.
The Society of Jesus in the beginning seems constituted by the creative tension
between the classical drive for uniformity and proper decorum and the
baroque hunger for diversity and delight. Nevertheless, if Wittkower is right, that
the spirit of adaptation wins out, then we are left with the paradox that the
baroque does indeed become the Jesuit style, even though Rome did not uniformly impose it.
In one of the more recent treatments of this issue, Gauvin Bailey argues that
we must finally put to rest any talk of a uniform Jesuit style.34 For he argues that it
is facile to identify the Jesuit style with the pejorative concept of the baroque,
on the stereotypical basis that Jesuits desire to make extravagant appeals to the
senses as a vehicle for control. On the contrary, Bailey argues that, if there exists a
distinctive Jesuit way of proceeding in the arts, its strategy is defined by a complex and fluid mixture of experimentation and creativity, combined with a willingness to adapt and learn from the surrounding cultural landscape.35 He adds, almost
whimsically, instead of dominating everything around it as critics have for so long
maintained, it ends up accommodating and assimilating. For noster modus is not a
product but a process.
Curiously enough, by displacing the notion of a Jesuit baroque uniformity in
favor of a Jesuit style of accommodation, we still arrive at a notion of the baroque.
For as Echevarria points out, the baroque is constituted by a mixture of contradictory elements, and the Jesuit wedding together of Italianate baroque and local customs and traditions across the globe precisely achieves this kind of mixture. In fact
the whole spirit of the Order can be called baroque in its contradictory desire
to live up to the Ignatian ideals of obedience and flexibility.
JESUIT CASUISTRY
Most moral thinkers tend to fit into either the class of Platonists or
Aristotelians. The former prefers the axiomatic application of first principles to
concrete cases and regards exceptions as unfortunate deviations from the idealistic
rigor of the moral law. The latter believes that practical wisdom requires not only
knowledge of universals but the perception of the particular circumstances
involved in a moral case as well. Exceptions are viewed as ways to improve the
necessarily imperfect scope of moral principles.
According to Alison Simmons, St. Ignatius himself and Jesuit educators early
on clearly show a preference for following Aristotle.36 Now Marc Fumaroli argues
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that it is precisely rhetoric, and its sophistic version, which is the creative driving
force of [Jesuit] ethics.37 For it is in the argumentative discourse surrounding the
cases presented by penitents in the confessional that Jesuits developed their own
brand of casuistry in the sixteenth century. The new circumstances resulting from
the incredible changes in science, economy, and politics seemed to call for a different approach from the standard ones.
Three major schools can be distinguished.38 Tutiorists argue the rigorous,
more Platonic stance that, when in doubt, one should take the safest course by
obeying the moral maxim in question. Probabiliorists advocate following
whichever position has the most probability, intrinsically and/or extrinsically.
However, Jesuit probabilists claim that, when there is a reasonable doubt regarding the validity of a maxim, the individual is free to disregard it, even if the preponderance of the evidence is on the side of following the maxim.
There are various reasons why the Jesuit way of proceeding resulted in their
championing a moral approach that their critics argued could only foster a spirit of
laxity. First, St. Ignatius wrote about the problem of scrupulous souls in his
Spiritual Exercises.39 A compassionate approach that tries to relieve the penitent of
needless guilt is thus in keeping with Ignatian spiritual direction. Second, Fumaroli
argues that the Jesuit casuists contextualized and narrative description and evaluation of sins had its epistemic model . . . in the ethical-rhetorical investigations of
the Humanists, who were ardent champions of human freedom in opposition to
Jansenist dogmatism.40 Third, according to Rivka Feldhay, though exaggerated
freedom is indeed rejected, still, a variety of opinions in everything not concerning faith is allowed as a necessary condition for intellectual vitality in Jesuit education.41 Accordingly, even deviations are not completely excluded from Jesuit
discourse . . . and acquire the epistemological status of possible opinions.
Marcus Hellyer also notes this vital tension in the Society between enforcing uniformity and permitting intellectual liberty.42 Thus if obedience to prescribed
norms comes naturally to Jesuits, it is never cadaver-like, but requires articulation through initiative and personal judgment.43 Likewise, pentinents who go to
Jesuits could expect to receive the same respect for the freedom of their individual
conscience.44 Finally, the charge that probablism inevitably fosters Machiavelian
unscrupulousness is countered by the fact that Jesuits were the prime advocates of
an anti-Machiavelian theory of the prince-hero.45
Like our own legal systems bias for the defendant, Jesuit casuistry thus
claims that, when there is reasonable doubt, we ought to decide in favor of the
moral agents freedom to choose. That there exists a baroque flavor to this
approach must now be demonstrated. First, Aristotelian bias for privileging the
particulars of a case mirrors the baroque reverence for the course and brute materiality of the world in opposition to any Platonic idealism. Indeed, the baroque
love for complexity is in sync with the casuists convoluted consideration of
numerous possibilities before the resolution is achieved. Second, if the tutiorist
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approach functions in a classical manner of finding the harmony between rigorous norms, the probabilist is far more open to undermining social norms by allowing for greater freedom for moral agents in an ever changing, chaotic world. After
all, the Jesuit use of equivocation and mental reservation in Elizabethan England
created great political instability. Third, Jonsen and Toulmin rightly point out the
necessity for a casuist mindset for Jesuit missionaries, who must strive to creatively mix the norms of Rome with the strange circumstances of worlds far away.46 A
more relaxed baroque approach in times of doubt thus proves far more effective
in accommodating the faith to newer places.
Fourth, like the baroque sublation of the classical, Jesuit probabilistic casuistry does not do away entirely with the tutiorist position. For even Jonsen and
Toulmin point out that the circumstances might dictate in some situations that we
follow the tutiorist approach.47 Kenneth Kirk argues that Jesuit casuists taught
precisely this, that when some vital interest was at stake, one is obliged to follow
the safer or more authoritative course of literal obedience.48 Fifth, the paradoxes
and ambiguities of the dual citizenship of the hero-prince (he belongs to both
heaven and earth) mirror the baroque love for contradictory mixtures. Finally, if
casuistry dies as a viable moral discourse in the Enlightenment, the reason is due
to the latters preference for the neo-classical virtues of clarity, simplicity, coherence, and brevity.
In conclusion, the reader hopefully grasps the intricate relationship between
the notions of the baroque, the Jesuit way of proceeding, and their probabilistic
type of moral casuistry. Those who prefer a more classical approach to art and
morality will, of course, disdain the baroque, and see the Jesuit approach to casuistry as sophistic in intent. However, if the critic learns to appreciate the value of
the baroque penchant for mixing contradictory elements, then what seems blatantly Machiavelian in Jesuit casuistry is really just an attempt to do justice to the
demands of both heaven and earth. Now we must consider a prime exemplar of
this baroque mixing of aesthetics and moral reasoning.
BALTASAR GRACIAN
I will first examine The Minds Wit and Art to discover how Gracian articulates a critical theory for baroque literature. Then I will consider contemporary
criticisms of his casuistic work, The Art of Worldly Wisdom. I will defend Gracian
from such charges by means of linking his casuistry to his aesthetic theory and by
demonstrating how his final allegorical classic reinforces my interpretation.
However, that we are dealing with a person who revels in paradox should be kept
in mind from the start.
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In The Minds Wit and Art, Gracian claims to be the first to truly understand
and articulate the nature of the minds most important function, for the ancients
never came to observe wit carefully, and so never found a system for it, much less
perfection.49 Those before (as well as many after) Gracian view wit and its creation of conceits as simply literary ornaments (often abused) added on to prior
acts of understanding.50 For them, Gracian simply articulates a theory of bad taste.
Gracian himself, however, holds that mere understanding without wit or conceit
is a sun without light.51 Or more precisely, understanding, for Gracian, is itself an
operation of wit that displays itself in poetry, prose, art, and action itself. He admits
that wit is easier to recognize than to define, and so his work is more properly a
collection of examples demonstrating the various kinds of wit.52
However, he does make various stabs at providing a definition. His simplest is
that the conceit is an act of understanding which vividly expresses the apt relation
that it found between objects.53 For Aristotle, knowledge consists in knowing the
abstract class to which an object belongs. For Gracian, on the contrary, one only
comes to know a particular object by grasping its connections to other things,
that is to say, through the perception of similarities and differences. This vision of
reality as a web of interconnections resembles the present-day science of complexity. For Gracian, the subject about which someone reflects . . . is like a center from
which the discourse distributes lines of deliberation and cunning to the entities that
surround it; that is, to what is adjacent and perfects the subject, as do its causes, its
effects, attributes, qualities, contingencies, circumstances of time, place, manner.54
A simile or metaphor would be an example of a conceit. However, it is never
entirely clear for Gracian whether a tired, simple simile like My love is like a
rose, is complex or imaginative enough to merit being called a conceit. For
Gracian repeatedly claims that just any comparison does not enclose wit, for
without subtlety or liveliness of imagination, some comparisons are just mere
rhetorical figures as in the case of similitudes and others.55 Yet elsewhere he
remarks that when the comparison takes some extraordinary contingency as its
basis, it is more laudable or a conceit of the first class.56 These latter observations would suggest that every simile is a conceit, but some are simply better than
others are. And the criterion for judging the creative superiority of conceits is on
the basis of how unusual is the comparison being made.57
There is probably no greater catalogue of the kinds of comparisons possible in
literature than Gracians own treatise itself. He examines everything from paradoxes, hyperboles, puns, and allusions to enigmas, riddles, maxims, and ingenious acts
of heroism. Gracian is well aware that not only can conceits be poorly constructed,
but that they can also be so exaggerated and excessively used as to constitute an
abuse of the imagination.58 Obviously one persons abuse is another persons reason to glory, as witness the diverse reactions to the conceits of Gracians peers, the
English Metaphysical poets. At one point, Gracian claims to prefer the compositions of the ancients to those of the moderns, since the former are more full of
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soul and clever liveliness, and the latter have not so much fruit of wit.59 Yet elsewhere he claims that erudition in modern things is often even more flavorful than
that in antiquity, since modern examples, if sublime, delight with their novelty.60
What remains constant for Gracian, however, is his insistence that we should use
conceits with a grain of tact: ones practical sense must season everything.61
What critics often forget is that Gracian is always calling for appropriateness and
not just a mindless use of wit.
Thus the most important kind of wit, for Gracian, is the prudent judgment
in which sagaciousness and subtlety share equally.62 To understand the reason
for his privileging of casuistic maxims, we have to realize that, for Gracian, wit is
an act of understanding that grasps the beautiful possibilities in things, while
judgment is that act which sees if there is a correspondence of wit with reality.63
Thus the prudential maxim is the grandest action of the mind because in it concur the vividness of imagination and felicitousness of prudence.64 To have both
truth and beauty is far preferable to have only one but not the other. And what
makes a maxim witty is precisely its imaginative attention to a particular occasion, or some special circumstance or an unusual contingency.65 Moreover,
the mature person honors those maxims directed toward disillusionment
above all, for they are the most useful and delightful precisely because of their
difficult wisdom.66
It follows that Gracian refuses to prefer amplification to brevity, the Asiatic
excessive style to the laconic, concise style, as his critics would claim. For
Gracian, on the contrary, each style has its perfection and occasion.67 If the sententiousness of Seneca is more appropriate for prudential maxims, it is far more
prudent to use an amplified style for oratorical purposes. Indeed the wit of a maxim
lies in its paradoxical, copious brevity precisely because it tries to combine different extremes in as condensed a manner as possible. Moreover, his preference for a
beautiful variety in styles is also inclusive of a more clear and coherent style,
since by variety he means an alternation of styles, difficult artifice (and his own
exemplification of such a style in his own works) actually allows for more simple
and natural art, when the circumstances make it appropriate, as in his correspondence not meant for publication.
Finally, the last topic Gracian deals with in his aesthetic masterpiece concerns
how wit is to be acquired: the easiest and most efficient instruction is by imitation.69 And that is why he provides so many examples of wit from the classics of
the past. Good taste is not acquired in any other way than by mastering the recognized paradigms from the past. However, wit does not just result in a slavish imitation of the past, for such a state of affairs would merely result in the ongoing
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perpetuation of the status quo in politics and the arts. On the contrary, on the very
last page of his own very original treatise, Gracian argues that true imitation does
not involve duplication or robbery, but rather it lies in transfiguring the
thoughts, transposing the elements of the past in a creative way that conceals
ones borrowing.70 Indeed, Leland Chambers argues that what is original about
Gracians theory of imitation is that he wants his readers to imitate the manner of
wit in its modes and species, not the witticisms themselves.71
Hugh Grady observes that most Spanish and English poetry of the seventeenth century is remarkably un-self-reflexive, while Gracian decisively formulates the meta-level of a new poetic methodology at the same time that he
exemplifies it.72 Arturo Ruiz agrees that the rambling structure of Gracians treatise seems in accord with the Spaniards theoretical commitment to difficult obscurity in order to challenge his readers to think more deeply.73 Moreover, Ruiz adds
that, though the Society of Jesus officially discouraged the stylistic excess associated with Gracians baroque theory, the very way it trained its men encouraged,
especially in the pulpit, a reliance upon just such an emotional, ornamental style.74
Perhaps the same could be said about the Jesuit practice of casuistry.
THEART OF WORLDLY WISDOM
Nicholas Spadaccini and Jenaro Talens introduce their collection of critical
essays about Gracians relevance for our contemporary New World Order by
spelling out the leftist viewpoint shared by most of the authors in their collection.75
They argue that the Spanish Baroque era is similar to our own postmodern age in
so far as it is dominated by an absolutist court as ours is ruled by the mass media.
In both eras there is much political ambiguity with declining empires struggling to
survive by utilizing the weapons of culture. Indeed, in both, a new power elite is
trying to establish itself in opposition to the democratic masses. The early
Renaissance stress on virtue is now replaced by the need for a prudential, worldly
wisdom, as is the case with the rise of Christian neorealism in our own time.
According to Spadaccini and Talens, Gracian is not interested in changing the
established order, to correct its injustices, but rather in finding the necessary means
to survive in such a vice-filled world. Accordingly, his maxims often call for selfcontrol, caution, preparedness, and the creation of an external self to protect the
inner self. Indeed, the manipulation of appearances means everything to Gracian,
such that his quest for success through rhetorical ploys resembles the philosophy
of Machiavelli. In short, Spadaccini and Talens label Gracians moral philosophy
as reactionary and conservative as they do the rest of the ostentatious Baroque
culture, for both are geared towards controlling the lives of the many by the few.
Alban Forcione argues that, though Gracian stresses the individuals right to
create works of art free from traditional creeds of imitation, he also requires that
same individual to submit to an absolutist view of the monarchical state.76 Isabel
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Livosky adds that Gracian is able to reconcile his advocacy of brutal methods for
power with the dictates of Christian morality by means of the sophistic dictum that
the noble end justifies the means.77 She compares very similar passages regarding
the means for success in both Gracian and Machiavelli and observes that they both
point to Ferdinand of Aragon as the ideal ruler.78 Moreover, she shrewdly observes
that, though Gracians probabilism challenges the principle of authority as
embedded in a hierarchy, it applies to someone who belongs to an elite group, not
the common man.79 Indeed, she notes that if his earlier enthusiastic veneration for
Ferdinands nation-state mirrors modernity, then perhaps in the atomization of
the nation-state and the selective individualism reflected in his later work we can
perceive the ethos of our own postmodernity.80
Malcom Read agrees that the shift from the Renaissance to the Baroque
resembles the transition from modernism to postmodernism.81 He contends that
Gracian is a writer who awaits discovery by the New Right. Neoliberals are notoriously less easily shocked than their classical forebears. Appropriately read,
Gracian might well be deployed to justify a little corporate fraud.82 William
Egginton agrees with this cynical reading of Gracian, since he maintains that what
is central for Gracian is that he desires the recognition of others in order to gain
power over them.83 Accordingly, he argues that, for Gracian, substance itself is
nothing other than a matter of degrees of appearance and that one can cultivate the
impression of interior substance through careful attention to the representation of
ones existence.84 Indeed, according to Egginton, Gracian is only concerned with
success in this world and he is not concerned with the other-worldly matters.85
He concludes with the intriguing suggestion that Kant represses the pathological
morality of Gracian, based as it is on self-interest, with his own enlightened sense
of the moral law that transcends mere inclination.86
I want now to refute this sophistic, Machiavelian interpretation of Gracians
The Art of Worldly Wisdom summarized above. I hope to show that its fundamental
bias is due to the failure to understand correctly the nature of baroque art that
Gracians book of maxims exemplifies in a special way. Moreover, I will also
argue that it makes the same mistake as Pascal commits in reducing the art of casuistry to mere sophistry, ignoring entirely the progressive dimensions to this dynamic enterprise.
The Art of Worldly Wisdom is a non-systematic collection of 300 maxims, of
which 78 of them have been recycled from some of Gracians previous works.87
Their focus is on how we are to live life in this world full of deceit. The baroque
mode of juxtaposition is quite evident in the fact that his maxims reflect the tension
between sacred and temporal concerns. Indeed, Aubrey Bell bluntly states that
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these maxims may even seem to contradict each other, so wedded is Gracian to
keeping a paradoxical mixture of idealism and the spirit of pragmatic adaptation.88
For example, Gracian urges us to put ourselves into someone elses shoes
(#294) but also never to involve ourselves in the fate of the unfortunate (#163). He
tells us that the natural is always the more pleasing (#123) but also that nature
needs to be perfected through art (#12). He maintains that luck goes to the wise
and virtuous (#21), but he also admits that even wisdom cannot at all times bring
luck (#139). He advises the making of witty remarks to extricate ourselves from
difficult situations (#73), yet he also argues that being serious is far more important
(#76). He urges us to always be prepared (#151), but also that we should live for
only the present moment (#288). He claims it is always prudent to have a scapegoat in mind (#149), and yet also that we should always be forgiving of the failings
of others (#109). He tells us not to look for the applause of the crowd (#28), yet he
also argues that the desire for fame springs from the best part of ourselves (#10).
He warns us to beware of novelty (#143), and yet also claims that novelty will win
you applause (#81). At one point he advocates the value of living alone (#137), at
another that we should not be unsociable (#74), and still elsewhere that we should
belong neither entirely to ourselves nor to others (#252). Sometimes he praises
deceit and concealment when it is prudent (#94), at other times he tells us to do
what is right even if imprudent (#29), and still elsewhere he argues that we should
alternate between the cunning of the serpent and the candor of the dove (#243). He
proposes that the promptness of giving a gift is crucial (#236), whereas he also
claims it does not matter much at all (#132). Finally, Gracian asserts that the breaking of the rules is okay if one can succeed in no other way (#66), and yet elsewhere
he asserts that virtue is its own reward (#90).
What are we to make of such contradictions? How are we to know which
maxim to follow? Joseph Jacobs gives the proper answer to the second question:
That depends on circumstances.89 Indeed, we should expect nothing less than a
set of maxims that contradict each other from a Jesuit casuist, precisely because
the valid scope of every maxim is dependent upon the particulars of the situation at
hand. Egginton, for one, acknowledges that these contradictions are the result of
Gracians desire to rate the contingency of action on circumstances above any
metaphysical standard of behavior.90 But then he foolishly proceeds to reduce the
motivation of the human agent, in Gracians viewpoint, to the single aim of selfaggrandizement. And, of course, for a baroque casuist, human beings are always
necessarily double natured, not so singular in their aims as Egginton presumes.
Indeed, many of the other scholars in Rhetoric and Politics also come up
with their Machiavelian interpretations of Gracian because they ignore one half of
the maxims that are meant to be kept in creative tension together. Livosky, for
one, acknowledges Gracians contemptuous rejection of Machiavelli, yet
argues that the text cannot lie regarding their similarity.91 She cites a whole list of
cynical maxims and then contends that a reference to virtue is only tacked on in
90

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the final maxim as an afterthought.92 She conveniently ignores a score of other

maxims detailing Gracians claim that more than the mere appearance of virtue is
necessary in this life. Read also reluctantly admits that, true, the Jesuit sometimes strives for balance: we should live (he recommends) neither entirely for
ourselves, nor entirely for others.93 The next word, of course, is but, for he
claims to know that the real drift of Gracians thought is that individualism is
the order of the day. These attempts to make Gracian into a coherent thinker, of
course, betray the very baroque mode of his thought: his desire to revel in ambiguity and paradox.
Alban Forcione commits an even greater hermeneutic sin.94 He argues that in
The Master Critic Gracian portrays the contemporary court world in the most
grotesque manner: as a labyrinthine masquerade of duplicity. He even points out
Gracians portrayal of Machiavelli in these passages as a grotesque charlatan.
Nevertheless, despite his own depiction of Gracians description here as a satirical
epiphany, he proceeds to argue that this Jesuit is an ardent advocate of calculated stratagems for succeeding in such a corruption-laden court life. Surely an
author who acknowledges Gracians recoil from his own modernist insights into
the realities and consequences of political power should be the first to question
scholars who identify Gracian with just such a simple Machiavelian philosophy.
One author in the collection edited by Spadaccini and Talens has managed to
propose a different reading that respects the complexity underlying Gratians prudential maxims.95 Carlos Hernandez-Sacristan argues that, if Gracian seems so
pessimistic, it is not because he sees social interactions in a dog-eat-dog Hobbesian
manner. Rather, such a tone conceals Gracians real insight that knowledge is only
acquired in a dialogical manner through an ethics of cooperation between different
social ranks. Far from trying to defeat the other, Gracians hero is merely interested
in applause, indeed, an admiration that can only come from giving it as well.
According to Hernandez-Sacristan, the set of fictions and strategies employed
cooperatively by the participants in a social encounter should be properly considered as a set of instruments for a critical approach to reality.
Ruiz argues for a more critical conception of casuistry in Gracian as well.
He observes that Gracian was sometimes criticized for his probabilist tendencies
as a confessor.96 Yet he rightly points to Maxim # 271 (If you know little, stick to
the safest.) as exemplifying Gracians awareness that there are situations in which
the tutiorist stance is preferable. If Gracian seems suspicious of the possibility of
social reform (at least when the Wheel of Fortune is on the downside), this does
result in his recognition of the political importance of clemency.97 Moreover, Ruiz
is quick to point out that Gracians pessimism regarding society did not extend to
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his view of the possibilities for personal moral development.98 Indeed, Ruiz counters the aristocratic interpretation of Gracians doctrine of mastery by maintaining
that it refers to the person who rises above the crowd, the latter, however, not
being intended to refer to the lower social classes, but to those who are living a life
of illusion and malice.99 The life of virtue is open to everyone, not just the few.
Monroe Hafter echoes Ruiz in presenting a balanced view of Gracians casuistic maxims. He argues that it is in Gracians final work, The Master Critic, that he
most forcefully asserts that we should be looking for the discriminating mean
between two extremes, instead of either striving to achieve an unattainable ideal
or succumbing to the depths of pure sophistry.100 Indeed, one of the illusions that
we need to lose for Gracian is the desire for absolute heroism. What is important
for the later Gracian, according to Hafter, is not our willingness to jeer at all the
follies of others, but our compassionate awareness that we too are very frail.101 Far
from being hostile to the deluded masses, we need to have pity for this all too
imperfect world we live in, for it is only in our interaction with others that we can
achieve salvation. Finally, Hafter makes it clear that, while the great person needs
to have genuine and not just feigned integrity, she cannot allow herself to be
abused or to go unknown.102 On the contrary, we need to realize that clever guile
can and must coexist with genuine virtue in the great person if anything good is to
be achieved in this world.
Foster also highlights the importance of The Master Critic for understanding
Gracians casuist wisdom. Despite its pessimistic tone, she argues that, for
Gracian, we can escape the mediocre and deceitful world by means of our artistic,
political, and artistic achievements.103 Indeed, Gracians own literary classic is
quite baroque in its collage-like combination of various genres that seeks to attain
a discordant unity.104 It revolves around the rambling misadventures of a father and
son, each representing a different side to our nature (reason and passion), but both
in need of being integrated into some kind of paradoxical baroque creation.105
Moreover, far from advocating a quietistic withdrawl from the world, Gracian
advocates a strategy of intense engagement that results in the greatest truth: the
truly wise man, the man who has himself and God, has all that he needs.106
Finally, if Spadaccini and Talens quote only selectively, we need to end our
discussion with some significant maxims that they have omitted from their consideration. In #50, Gracian acknowledges that our own conscience must be our ultimate standard, not the dictates of external authorities. However, ones judgments
will only be authentic if one is a man without illusion, a wise Christian, a philosophical courtier (#100). And indeed, for Gracian, wisdom stems from the realization that things depend upon many circumstances: what constitutes triumph in
one set may cause a defeat in another (#107). Accordingly, to presume that his
seemingly cynical maxims are the sole wisdom he has to share is folly, for the
slightest change in circumstances can alter the merits of any maxim. In short, if we
wish to achieve the middle way, then we must use our baroque wit by joining
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extremes (#108). Indeed, far from living by fixed rules, he contends that prudence lies in steering by the wind, that is, be always shifting this way and that as is
necessary (#288). If Gracian urges us to be modern in taste, it is only because he
wants us to lead it to higher things (#120). If there are no absolute goods that are
always to be sought in every situation, it also follows for him that there are no
absolute evils as well: There is nothing that has no good in it (#140). This applies
to people, strategies, ideas, and things, for such is in keeping with the Ignatian
principle of finding God in all things. Consequently, though he is suspicious of
the defects of the vulgar masses, he is well aware that it is only by intercourse with
others that we can attain salvation: Better mad with the rest of the world than wise
alone (#133). And so, his final maxim sums it all up: In one word, be a Saint
(#300). But by this imperative, he is not suggesting that the demands of heroic
virtue always trump the pragmatic compromises we are sometimes forced to
make. On the contrary, the saint is precisely equated with the prudent person who
knows what is appropriate in each particular situation.
The critics of Gracians thought in our time do precisely what Pascal did to
Jesuit casuistry in the seventeenth century. They equate it with Machiavelian
sophistry intent upon power and pleasure in an uncertain age. But by robbing casuistry of any possibility of serving as a critical voice for change, they leave in
place the very authoritarian structures they so desperately want to replace or put
into question. However, if the baroque dimensions of casuistry can be appreciated,
then it may be possible for Gracians wisdom to have some relevance for our postmodern age as well.
1Aubrey Bell, Baltasar Gracian (Oxford,
1921), 3.
2David Mitchell, The Jesuits: A History (NY,
1981), 139.
3See Alban Forcione, At the Threshold of
Modernity: Gracians El Criticon, in Rhetoric
and Politics: Baltasar Gracian and the New
World Order, eds., Nicholas Spadaccini and
Jenaro Talens (Minneapolis, 1997), 4, and
Virginia Ramos Foster, Baltasar Gracian
(Boston, 1975), 70-71.
4Arturo Zorate Ruiz, Gracian, Wit, and the
Baroque Age (NY, 1996), 134.
5Ernst Curtius, European Literature and the
Latin Middle Ages, Willard Trask, trans. (NY,
1953), 301.
6Omar Calabrese, Neo-Baroque: A Sign of the
Times, Charles Lambert, trans. (Princeton,
1992), 132.
7See Spadaccini and Talens.

8Albert Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin, The

Abuse of Casuistry: A History of Moral
Reasoning (Berkeley, 1988), 145, 372.
9Calabrese, xii.
10Jonsen and Toulmin, 271.
11Calabrese, 11-18.
12Timothy
Hampton,
Introduction:
Baroques, in his edited Yale French Studies
(No. 80): Baroque Topographies: Literature/
History/Philosophy (1991), 1.
13Ibid., 3.
14Ibid.
15Ibid.
16Ibid., 25, 28, 130, 144, 173, 184, 193.
17Ibid., 26, 279, 184.
18Roy Daniells, Milton, Mannerism, and
Baroque (Toronto, 1963), 6, 52.
19John Shearman, Mannerism: Style and
Civilization (Baltimore, 1967), 32-33.
20Hampton, 8.

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21Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, Celestinas

Brood: Continuities of the Baroque in Spanish
and Latin American Literature (Durham and
London, 1993).
22Ibid., 81.
23Ibid., 82, 84.
24Ibid., 111.
25Ibid., 164.
26Ibid., 166.
27Irma Jaffe, Preface to Baroque Art: The
Jesuit Contribution, eds., Rudolf Wittkower and
Irma Jaffe (NY, 1972), ix.
28St. Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual
Exercises, trans., Louis Puhl, SJ (Chicago,
1951), 160.
29Ibid., 7.
30Rudolf Wittkower, Problems of the
Theme, in Wittkower and Jaffe, 2-3.
31Ibid.
32Ibid., 7.
33Ibid., 6-12.
34Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Le style jesuite
nexiste pas: Jesuit Corporate Culture and the
Visual Arts, in The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences,
and the Arts, 1540-1773, eds. John OMalley, SJ
et al (Toronto, 1999), 38-39.
35Ibid., 73.
36Alison
Simmons, Jesuit Aristotelian
Education: The De Anima Commentaries, in
OMalley et al, 522-23.
37Marc Fumaroli, The Fertility and the
Shortcomings of Renaissance Rhetoric: The
Jesuit Case, in OMalley et al, 90-91.
38Camille Wells Slights, The Casuistical
Tradition in Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert, and
Milton (Princeton, 1981), 13-14.
39St. Ignatius, 154-56.
40Fumaroli, 97.
41Rivka Feldhay, The Cultural Field of Jesuit
Science, OMalley et al, 115.
42Marcus
Hellyer, Jesuit Physics in
Eighteenth-Century Germany: Some Important
Continuities, in OMalley et al, 540.
43Steven Harris, Mapping Jesuit Science:
The Role of Travel in the Geography of
Knowledge, in OMalley et al, 230.
44James Keenan, SJ, Jesuit Casuistry or
Jesuit Spirituality? The Roots of SeventeenthCentury British Puritan Practical Divinity, in
OMalley et al, 630-31.
45Irving Lavin, Berninis Iamge of the Ideal
Christian Monarch, in OMalley et al, 442-46.
46Jonsen and Toulmin, 148.
47Ibid., 261.

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48Kenneth
Kirk, Conscience and its
Problems: An Introduction to Casuistry
(Louisville, 1999), 387-88.
49Baltasar Gracian, The Minds Wit and Art,
trans. Leland Chambers (Diss. University of
Michigan, 1962), 85.
50Ruiz, 3-4.
51Gracian, 89.
52Ibid., 92.
53Ibid., 97.
54Ibid., 116.
55Ibid., 243, 276, 278.
56Ibid., 279, 283.
57Ibid., 303.
58Ibid., 406.
59Ibid., 440.
60Ibid., 840.
61Ibid., 859.
62Ibid., 485.
63Ruiz, 160-61.
64Gracian, 505.
65Ibid., 505.
66Ibid., 673.
67Ibid., 870.
68Ibid., 867.
69Ibid., 898.
70Ibid., 900.
71Chambers, introduction to Gracians Wit, 22.
72Hugh Grady, Rhetoric, Wit, and Art in
Gracians Agudeza, MLQ 41 (1980), 37.
73Ruiz, 5.
74Ibid., 36, 50.
75Spadacccini and Talens, Introduction: The
Practice of Worldly Wisdom: Rereading
Gracian from the New World Order, in
Rhetoric and Politics, ix-xxxii.
76Forcione, 42.
77Isabel Livosky, On Power, Image, and
Gracians Prototype, in Spadaccini and
Talens, 72.
78Ibid., 74-75.
79Ibid., 79-80.
80Ibid., 84.
81Malcolm
Read, Saving Appearance:
Language and Commodification in Baltasar
Gracian, in Spadaccini and Talens, 122.
82Ibid., 105.
83William Egginton, Gracian and the
Emergence of the Modern Subject, in
Spadaccini and Talens, 154.
84Ibid., 158.
85Ibid., 161.
86Ibid., 163-66.
87Foster, 133.

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Bell, 30-31.
Jacobs, xiv.
90Egginton, 153.
91Livosky, 74.
92Ibid., 77.
93Read, 106.
94Forcione, 43-47.
95Carlos Hernandez-Sacristan, The Art of
Worldly Wisdom as an Ethics of Conversation,
in Spadaccini and Talens, 287-303.
96Ruiz, 32.
97Ibid., 127.
88
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Ibid., 135.
Ibid., 158, 168.
100Monroe Hafter, Gracian and Perfection:
Spanish Moralists of the 17th Century
(Cambridge, 1966), 119.
101Ibid., 111, 144, 151, 160.
102Ibid., 127, 142-44.
103Foster, 25, 71.
104Ibid., 64, 72.
105Ibid., 71.
106Ibid., 75-76.
98
99

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