Self-creation by Gracián: between being and appearing

Abstract

Baltasar Gracián is an author eminently baroque. At the centre of his interrogations, we can find the construction of the individual that must become a person (concept that he uses to designate an accomplished man), in a reflection between politics and aesthetics. He studies the fragmentation of the self within a duality between being and appearing, within a differentiation that is not a breaking point, and that is built dialoguing with alterity. Thanks to the notions of adornment, of juicio or ingenio, Gracián reflects on the construction of the self with at its heart a multiplicity, a transformation, between shadow and light, playing with the concept of chiaroscuro.