Resumen
Resumen de El autócrata de la mesa del desayuno
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This book is for readers who enjoy a lively voice, quick wit and old-fashioned Boston charm. If you like essays that wander from poetry to science to gossip, you will feel at home at this table.
De qué trata este libro
What happens when a Boston breakfast table becomes the stage for its most talkative boarder? In The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, Oliver Wendell Holmes lets one voice hold forth on puns, poems, elms and the human heart, while the other boarders answer back. There is a divinity student, a quiet schoolmistress, an old gentleman opposite, a cheeky young man called John, and a landlady with her daughter and her youngest son, Benjamin Franklin.
Holmes wrote two articles under this title in 1831 and 1832. When the Atlantic Monthly began twenty-five years later, he took the title up again, and the essays were gathered into a book in 1858. Poems fall between the talk, and a thread of feeling runs from one breakfast to the next.
En este resumen
- 1Good talk is an art, not a contestFree
- 2Clever people may admire each other freely
- 3Wordplay and facts both need good manners
- 4Memory hides in smells and small things
- 5Poems, like pipes and violins, ripen with use
- 6Truth must stay square, not roll
- 7Age comes gently and can be met with play
- 8Trees, towns and homes shape who we are
- 9The mind runs like a machine we cannot stop
- 10Love enters the boardinghouse and the Autocrat
Idea clave 1 de 10
Good talk is an art, not a contest
Holmes opens in the middle of a sentence, as if the Autocrat has just been interrupted. He treats conversation as serious business. A talker can drain you more in an hour than a day of fasting.
He names what spoils talk most. It is not a lack of ideas or manners but long quarrels over small points between people who disagree about the basic beliefs those points rest on. Talk also needs rests as well as notes, like a harp whose strings must sometimes be stilled. One listener who insists on strict fact can flatten a whole table of lively minds.
Then comes the best-remembered example. When John and Thomas talk, six people are present. There is the real John, John's idea of himself, and Thomas's idea of John, and the same three for Thomas. Only one of the three Johns pays taxes, yet the other two speak just as loudly. So we argue with the pictures people hold of themselves, and they argue with ours. Listen for who is really speaking.
Takeaway: treat conversation as a fine art that needs tact, give and take, and a little imagination.
That’s 1 of 10 key points.
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Who’s who
- The Autocrat
- The boarding-house narrator leads his fellow boarders in lively conversations about human nature, belief, and everyday life.
- The landlady
- The landlady hosts the Autocrat and the other boarders whose conversations give the book its setting.
- The schoolmistress
- The schoolmistress is a fellow boarder who listens to the Autocrat and takes part in the table's conversations.
- The divinity student
- The divinity student shares the boarding-house table with the Autocrat and brings religious interests to their company.
- The old gentleman
- The old gentleman belongs to the boarding-house company gathered around the Autocrat and his talkative fellow guests.
- John
- John is a young man among the boarders who share meals and conversation with the Autocrat.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 84,500 words
- Reading timeAbout 5 h 55 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 13 other languages
Questions about El autócrata de la mesa del desayuno
What is The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table about?
It follows a talkative boarder at a Boston boardinghouse who shares opinions on conversation, poetry, age, trees, truth and the mind with his fellow boarders. Poems and a gentle love story run between the essays.
Who are the schoolmistress and the divinity student?
They are two fellow boarders who listen to the Autocrat and answer him. The divinity student asks earnest questions, while the quiet schoolmistress becomes the person he walks with and grows fond of.
Are the poems in the book by Holmes?
Yes, Holmes wrote them himself, though some are credited within the story to the Poet or the Professor. The best known are The Chambered Nautilus and The Deacon's Masterpiece, with its wonderful one-hoss shay.
When was The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table written?
Holmes wrote the essays for the Atlantic Monthly, which began twenty-five years after two earlier articles under the same title in 1831 and 1832.
Is The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table easy to read?
Its chapters are short talks with a friendly, joking voice, and poems break up the prose. You can read one breakfast at a time and enjoy each on its own.
Cite this edition
Holmes, Oliver Wendell. The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-autocrat-of-the-breakfast-table.
Holmes, O. W. (2026). The autocrat of the breakfast-table. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-autocrat-of-the-breakfast-table (Original work published 1858)
Holmes, Oliver Wendell. The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-autocrat-of-the-breakfast-table.
@book{holmes2026autocrat,
author = {Holmes, Oliver Wendell},
title = {The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-autocrat-of-the-breakfast-table},
note = {First published 1858}
}
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