Gracián y Morales Baltasar (1601–58), Spanish writer, moralist, and a leading literary theorist of the Spanish baroque. Born in Belmonte, he entered the Jesuit order in 1619 and became rector of the Jesuit College at Tarragona and a favorite of King Philip III. Gracián’s most important works are Agudeza y arte de ingenio (‘The Art of Worldly Wisdom,’ 1642–48) and El criticón (‘The Critic,’ 1651–57). The first provides philosophical support for conceptismo, a Spanish literary movement that sought to create new concepts through the development of an elaborate style, characterized by subtlety (agudeza) and ingenious literary artifices. El criticón, written in the conceptist style, is a philosophical novel that pessimistically criticizes the evils of civilization. Gracián anticipates Rousseau’s noble savage in claiming that, although human beings are fundamentally good in the state of nature, they are corrupted by civilization. Echoing a common theme of Spanish thought at the time, he attributes the nefarious influence of civilization to the confusion it creates between appearance and reality. But Gracián’s pessimism is tempered by faith: man has hope in the afterlife, when reality is finally revealed. Gracián wrote several other influential books. In El héroe (‘The Hero,’ 1637) and El político (‘The Politician,’ 1640), he follows Machiavelli in discussing the attributes of the ideal prince; El discreto (‘The Man of Discretion,’ 1646) explores the ideal gentleman, as judged by Spanish society. Most of Gracián’s books were published under pseudonyms to avoid censure by his order. Among authors outside Spain who used his ideas are Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Voltaire, and Rousseau. J.J.E.G.