I. Crisi primera. Náufrago Critilo, encuentra con Andrenio
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A Baroque allegory in three parts for B2
El Criticón El Criticón
Baltasar Gracián, 1913
Baltasar Gracián’s complete allegorical novel, all three parts of 1651, 1653 and 1657 in the Renacimiento edition of 1913-1914, not an adaptation. In the catalog it is B2 by the numbers: about 208,300 words and 18 words per sentence on average. Its 38 crises (chapters) follow Critilo and Andrenio through the four ages of life; the first five are the densest, and Gracián’s wit packs more into a sentence than its length suggests.
- B2
- 208 314 words
- 35-58 hours
Will this text hold?
B1
Earlier
At B1 the long periods, conceits and old forms (á for a, deste, dellas) will wear you out; expect to translate whole sentences and look up many words.
B1B2
This text
You can manage it at B2 with patience: the sentences are of ordinary length, but the allegory and wordplay need rereading. Take one crisis at a time, translating single words and, for the tangled periods, whole sentences.
Check this passageC1
With room to spare
At C1 you can follow the story freely and begin to enjoy the Baroque wit; what still slows you down are the learned allusions, the dense moral abstractions and the old forms.
Start readingThe average sentence has 18 words, and about one word in twelve has 9 letters or more (8.2%). That is mid-range for B2 and below the C1 mark of one long word in ten. In the catalog, La Regenta (19 words per sentence) is B2 as well, while Don Quixote, at 43, is C2. The difficulty is uneven: the first five crises average about 22 words per sentence with a long word about every tenth word, the other thirty-three about 17. What the counts cannot show is density: Gracián’s conceits, wordplay and moral abstractions make a short sentence do the work of a long one, and this edition’s modernized punctuation cuts his periods at colons and semicolons, so the count reads lower than the text feels. Hence B2, but slow going. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 208 314
- words
- 18
- words in an average sentence
- 35-58
- hours of reading
- 1913
- Renacimiento
Renacimiento, 1913. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
Critilo, a man of mature years, is shipwrecked off the island of Saint Helena and clings to a plank. On the shore he meets Andrenio, a young man raised by wild beasts who has never seen another human being. Critilo teaches him to speak, and together they set out to cross the world of men and the course of a whole life: the spring and summer of youth in the first part, the autumn of manhood in the second, the winter of old age in the third. Fairs, courts, enchanted palaces and prisons pass before them, and at every step they learn how false appearances are. Where their pilgrimage ends is not revealed here.
Compare two places
El Criticón
XVI. Crisi tercera. La cárcel de oro y calabozos de plata
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¿ ?, . ¿ ? , . . ; . , , , , , .
¡, , , ! ¡ !
Choose an underlined word.
A long period before the verb
The sentence opens with a chain of phrases (luchando, contrastando, mal sostenido) and the main verb solicitaba arrives late, with its subject un náufrago after it: read it as “a shipwrecked man was seeking harbour, fighting the waves”. Cisne en lo ya cano y más en lo canoro plays on cano (white-haired) and canoro (melodious): a swan in his grey hair and still more in his song. Se conjuran at the end means “are warded off”.
The goddess answers back
Gracián stages the quarrel as a trial: the French burst in, and Fortune answers them in person with wit. Note the vosotros forms (¿Qué murmuráis de mí?) and the wordplay on parar: nunca para mi rueda (“my wheel never stops”) and ni á vosotros os para cosa en las manos (“nothing stays in your hands either”). Dellas is the old contraction of de ellas, and te sangras en salud is an idiom: to protect yourself in advance.
Where the text gets harder
I-Vlonger sentences at the start
VI-XXXVIIImostly shorter sentences
- VICrisi sexta. Estado del siglo
- VIICrisi séptima. La fuente de los engaños
- VIIICrisi octava. Las maravillas de Artemia
- IXCrisi novena. Moral anatomía del hombre
- XCrisi décima. El mal paso del salteo
- XICrisi undécima. El golfo cortesano
- XIICrisi duodécima. Los encantos de Falsirena
- XIIICrisi decimotercera. La feria de todo el mundo
- XIVCrisi primera. Reforma universal
- XVCrisi segunda. Los prodigios de Salastano
- XVICrisi tercera. La cárcel de oro y calabozos de plata
- XVIICrisi cuarta. El museo del discreto
- XVIIICrisi quinta. Plaza del populacho y corral del vulgo
- XIXCrisi sexta. Cargos y descargos de la Fortuna
- XXCrisi séptima. El hiermo de Hipocrinda
- XXICrisi octava. Armería del valor
- XXIICrisi novena. Anfiteatro de monstruosidades
- XXIIICrisi décima. Virtelia encantada
- XXIVCrisi undécima. El tejado de vidrio y Momo tirando piedras
- XXVCrisi duodécima. El trono del mando
- XXVICrisi decimotercera. La jaula de todos
- XXVIICrisi primera. Honores y horrores de Vejecia
- XXVIIICrisi segunda. El estanco de los vicios
- XXIXCrisi tercera. La verdad de parto
- XXXCrisi cuarta. El mundo descifrado
- XXXICrisi quinta. El palacio sin puertas
- XXXIICrisi sexta. El saber reinando
- XXXIIICrisi séptima. La hija sin padre en los desvanes del mundo
- XXXIVCrisi octava. La cueva de la nada
- XXXVCrisi novena. Felisinda descubierta
- XXXVICrisi décima. La rueda del tiempo
- XXXVIICrisi undécima. La suegra de la vida
- XXXVIIICrisi duodécima. La isla de la inmortalidad
Translation while you read
The book stays free on every plan. Reader, €1 a month, removes the daily limit on words and sentences.
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In a sentence like “Madrastra se mostró la naturaleza con el hombre, pues lo que le quitó de conocimiento al nacer, le restituye al morir”, the verb comes first and the subject late: translating the whole sentence in Reader shows the structure before you work out single words.
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Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s abridgement: Baltasar Gracián’s complete El Criticón in its three parts of 1651, 1653 and 1657, all 38 crises, with his dedications and his notes to the reader. The text follows the Renacimiento edition prepared by Julio Cejador (Madrid, 1913-1914) as published by Project Gutenberg, with modernized spelling and punctuation; the editor’s prologue, the margin notes and the index are left out.
Is there an audiobook?
El Criticón has no audiobook on MovaReader: the text is read on screen, and the translation appears when you tap a word. You will need it most for learned and bookish words such as canoro or antojo.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. In this book it helps most in Gracián’s long periods, for example “Madrastra se mostró la naturaleza con el hombre, pues lo que le quitó de conocimiento al nacer, le restituye al morir”, where the verb comes first. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole book takes about 35-58 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. The 38 chapters run from about 2,900 to 7,900 words, so one chapter makes a long evening or two short ones.
Where does the text get easier?
It eases a little after the start. The first five crises are the densest, about 22 words per sentence with a long word about every tenth word; from crisis VI on the book averages about 17 words per sentence, and only chapters XXVII and XXVIII, the opening of the third part, rise again to 20-22.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. Once you sign in, the reader keeps your last place and the words you opened, so you can come back every evening where you left off. Any of the 38 chapters also opens from the contents on this page, for example chapter XIV, where the second part begins.