For this new anthology, Anthony Bonner has chosen central texts from his acclaimed two-volume compilation Selected Works of Ramon Llull (Princeton, 1985). Available for the first time in an affordable format, these works serve as an introduction to the life and writings of the Catalan (properly, Majorcan) philosopher, mystic, and theologian who lived from 1232 to 1316. Founder of a school of Arabic and other languages, Llull was also a poet and novelist and one of the creators of literary Catalan.

This volume contains three prefaces on Llull's life, thought, and...

Modern histories of medieval culture often assert without qualification that the oral exercise of public eloquence during the European Middle Ages was limited to preaching by the clergy. The classical art of rhetoric supposedly survived only as a written subject for study in the schools. During the past thirty years, however, knowledge of medieval rhetorical theory and practice has grown tremendously. Historians and philologians have devoted particular attention to the relationship between oral and written communication in medieval Europe. Their investigations are beginning to suggest -- not...

Ramon Llull wrote the Doctrina pueril between 1274 and 1276 to provide minimum knowledge to those people---children, but also adults--- who did not have the opportunity to acquire a sufficient doctrinal and intellectual education. In the late thirteenth century this meant stressing the basics of Christian doctrine and also accessing some aspects of general culture. The most important part of the Doctrina is dedicated to the catechism (articles of faith, commandments, sacraments, vices and virtues, etc.). Especially interesting, however, are the more general sections, encyclopedic in nature,...

The Romance of Evast and Blaquerna is a novel in which Ramon Llull rebelled against secular literature of chivalry and the court in general, which was so successful in his time. Written around 1283, it tells the fictional biography of Blaquerna, a virtuous young man who aspires to be a hermit, not a knight, but who on encountering the disorder of the world is obliged to remain in it. In his reform efforts, Blaquerna passes through several estates before being elected Holy Father in Rome, allowing him to intervene in all Christendom and work decidedly in favor of the conversion of infidels ....