Works
Villarroel had a poor opinion of his own knowledge of mathematics and science, a result of the low quality of education available in the Spain of his era. As he wrote: "I knew well my ignorance and blindness as I went groping down the alleyways of my profession. But I also knew that I was in the land of the blind, for Spain lay in the grip of a darkness so fearsome that in no school, college or university in any one of its cities was there an individual capable of lighting a lamp whereby one might seek out the elements of these sciences. In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king" (quoted by Atkinson, page 24).
Today Villarroel is more famous as a writer. In twenty years he received more than 2,000 ducados per year. He was a prolific and popular author on numerous subjects with a style modelled on that of Quevedo whose Sueños (satirical visions of Hell) he imitated in his Sueños morales, visiones y visitas de Torres con D. Francisco de Quevedo por Madrid(1727–1751).
He wrote Los desdichados del mundo y la gloria (1737), He also wrote poems and plays, but his most important work is his picaresque account of his own life entitled Vida, ascendencia, nacimiento, crianza y aventuras del doctor don Diego de Torres Villarroel, (1743, with further additions later), divided into six chapters, each dealing with a decade of his life.
He also wrote scientific works such as Anatomía de lo visible e invisible de ambas esferas (1738) and works about the lives of saints (e.g. Vida de Sor Gregoria de Santa Teresa) and poets (Vida de Gabriel Álvarez de Toledo).
Villarroel was a favourite author of the young Jorge Luis Borges.
Read more about this topic: Diego De Torres Villarroel
Famous quotes containing the word works:
“We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law.”
—Bible: New Testament, Galatians 2:15-16.
“It is the art of mankind to polish the world, and every one who works is scrubbing in some part.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Are you there, Africa with the bulging chest and oblong thigh? Sulking Africa, wrought of iron, in the fire, Africa of the millions of royal slaves, deported Africa, drifting continent, are you there? Slowly you vanish, you withdraw into the past, into the tales of castaways, colonial museums, the works of scholars.”
—Jean Genet (1910–1986)