Book Description

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 reputation. Of Llull's works, it offers Book of the Gentile and the Three Wise Men, his seminal Christian apology; the Ars brevis, a summary of his philosophical system; The Book of the Lover and the Beloved, a celebration of mystical love in the courtly tradition; and his wittily scathing Book of the Beasts.

Customer Reviews (1)

Hard to Get your Arms Around
For all practical purposes, this book is the primary introduction to Ramon Llull available in English.Llull is a difficult figure to come to terms with, for various reasons, and I must admit that I left this book feeling a bit more confused than I was when I started.

There are two components of this book:Llull's writings themselves (not by any means all of them, which would require much more space, and Professor Bonner has already released a two-volume anthology in addition to this book) and Professor Bonner's commentary.From the very start, it's difficult for us to even begin to conceive of Llull's place in his own world.Llull was born in Mallorca, which had only been reconquered from the Muslims a few years before his birth, thus raising the prospect that he experienced some cultural crosscurrents in his youth.He spent his earlier years as a courtier, and more specifically as a troubador, which also could raise suspicions about his background.After a conversion experience, Llull became a tertiary Franciscan, a designation defining a semi-monastic state not necessarily in permanent orders; presumably, he was considered too old to enter regular orders (he was past thirty).He spoke Arabic fluently, and a great deal of his work is in Arabic.

Professor Bonner defines him primarily as having one major goal in his life:conversion of the Moors, and defines him as a "polemicist", in the terms of the day.On reading his works, one feels that the polemic is missing, and in fact he apparently has so much sympathy for Islam that it looks as if he may have been a crypto-Muslim himself.Llull himself cites Sufi influence in some of his work, and one of his major works - "The Book of the Lover and his Beloved" - bears a title that sounds like a direct translation from Arabic.

Llull's major life's work was his "Ars" (which apparently means something in this context like style of presentation) and it is in this area that the book really falls down, in my opinion.Professor Bonner makes constant reference to Llull's "Ars" without ever going into any specific examples as to what it is.It is apparently some system of thought that is supposed to explain all other systems of thought, and it involves the use of diagrams.Based on what I have found in other works it is true that Llull's "Ars" is apparently quite abstruse, and I can only presume that Professor Bonner didn't feel he had enough space to do it justice in this one-volume presentation.However, I was left with a sense that it was either something akin to the Jewish Kabbala or else a thirteenth-century version of Abraham Maslow's diagrams.Neither of these images leaves me any further on.

Llull was both praised and condemned by later generations as an alchemist, a charge which Professor Bonner dismisses by showing that the alchemical works attributed to him were forgeries.Llull has also been beatified by the Vatican, but he has never been canonized; one wonders whether this is was because of the whiff of alchemy in his background or whether his thought was too far out of the Christian mainstream, like Meister Eckhart.

Llull is also considered the founder of Catalan literature, a fact which Professor Bonner devotes no space to, and it would be interesting to place him within this perspective.All in all, I found Professor Bonner's explanations told me too little, and they didn't really prepare me for what I encountered when reading Llull's texts.It would be interesting to see if there is any serious study of Llull's work by a competent Hispanic Arabist on the level of Luce Lopez-Baralt or Father Asin Palacios.

I can't say that the book cleared things up for me.Having said that, I have no recommendation to the reader where he or she should go to find out more.Perhaps Professor Bonner's two-volume work provides more background, but to all appearances it is a specialist work and probably more than the casual reader would care to deal with.There are some websites in Spanish and Catalan that I've encountered that go into some detail regarding the "Ars", but I suspect some New Age revisionism in their content, which is certainly not a charge that can be levelled at Professor Bonner.

In the end, I opt for three stars for the work.If you're interested in Llull this is as good a place to start as any, and better than most, no doubt. ... Read more

Book Description
This famous Catalan mystic is presented here with selections from his writings. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Theological Studies, published by Theological Studies, Inc. on June 1, 1998. The length of the article is 780 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The Evangelical Rhetoric of Ramon Llull: Lay Learning and Piety in the Christian West around 1300.
Author: Fernando Dominguez
Publication: Theological Studies (Refereed)
Date: June 1, 1998
Publisher: Theological Studies, Inc.
Volume: v59Issue: n2Page: p335(2)

Article Type: Book Review

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Book Description
This book presents a comprehensive critical survey of all the logical doctrines of the well-known but little understood Catalan philosopher and theologian, Ramon Llull (1232-1316).The highly idiosyncratic character of Llull's writings has long frustrated the efforts of general medieval
historians to define his contribution to later scholastic culture, and has resisted attempts by specialists to explain exactly how his methods and procedures worked. This new study--the first book-length treatment in English of Llull's philosophy to appear in over fifty years--seeks to resolve both
of these difficulties.The author argues that Llull's peculiar logical doctrines result from his reinterpretation of the use of commonplace scholastic teachings according to his own preferred ethical and spiritual ideals. ... Read more

Book Description
Ramon Llull, poete mystique, ermite ambulant et logicien catalan du XIIIe siecle, a consacre sa vie a essayer d'harmoniser les trois religions presentes dans sa Majorque natale, l'arabe, la juive et la chretienne, par la voie de la conversion et l'assimilation. Alors qu'aujourd'hui l'Europe est confrontee a une serie de defis tels que son elargissement, l'ouverture a l'Est, ses relations avec le Sud et le Maghreb, "c'est peut-etre le moment de mediter sur ces premiers jalons d'une Europe tolerante que Llull a su planter en son temps". ... Read more