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The Wisdom of the Renaissance - Hardcover

Kellogg, Michael K.

 
9781633885189: The Wisdom of the Renaissance
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1633885186 ISBN 13: 9781633885189
Verlag: Prometheus Books, 2080

Inhaltsangabe

An overview and appreciation of Renaissance literature for lay readers that takes account of major intellectual trends, various genres, and key historical figures of the period.

This engaging survey of important works spanning the lives of Petrarch (1304-1374) to Shakespeare (1564-1616) reveals the depth of thought and the diversity of expression that characterized the Renaissance. The author examines poetry, philosophical treatises, essays, letters, novels, comedies, and dramas, documenting the unique array of evolving concerns that drove the Renaissance search for wisdom.

Beginning with Petrarch's rejection of scholasticism and attempt to give new life to classical learning, Kellogg shows how medieval ideas were transformed and transcended at an increasingly rapid pace. Erasmus's calls for modest reforms led to the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, which divided and ravaged much of Europe. Machiavelli's frank pragmatism was countered by the utopian irony of Thomas More. And Castiglione's ideal courtier perfects the ideal of Renaissance self-fashioning. All of these figures lay the groundwork for the four towering authors with whom the book ends: Rabelais, Montaigne, Cervantes, and Shakespeare, each of whom contributes to a post-Renaissance view of humanity and of personal identity that is the beginning of modernism.

Only two centuries passed between Petrarch and Shakespeare, but they are without doubt the two most transformative centuries in the history of thought.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Michael K. Kellogg is the author of The Wisdom of the Middle Ages, The Roman Search for Wisdom, The Greek Search for Wisdom, and Three Questions We Never Stop Asking. Educated at Stanford and Oxford in philosophy and at Harvard Law School, he is a founding and managing partner at Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick, PLLC, in Washington, DC. He is a native of Palo Alto, California.

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Ten Renaissance Authors

“Nothing [is] more wonderful than man,” wrote the fifteenth-century Italian philosopher Pico della Mirandola. Man stands between the physical world of nature and the spiritual world of God and the angels. If he cultivates his sensuality, he will become one with the beasts. But if he cultivates his intellect and recognizes “the dignity of th[e] liberal arts,” “he will be an angel, and a son of God.”  

This is a truly remarkable statement: man can become like a god. The sentiment seems to come right out of the pagan, anthropomorphic mythology of the classical world. Yet Pico never doubted that humanist studies were fully compatible with Christian revelation. Thomas Aquinas had attempted two centuries earlier to harmonize Aristotelian reason and church doctrine. Whole waves of lesser scholar theologians toiled in his wake and brought discredit to the enterprise. Scholasticism became a term of derision and abuse, though whether it was because reason was distorted to serve religion or because religion was distorted to serve reason depended on the perspective of the critic.

Pico, however, was advocating something very different. He had little interest in doctrinal issues. He simply wanted to celebrate the capacities of man as given by God and thereby partaking of the divine. For him, the various schools and sects were but stepping stones to enhanced consciousness of man himself, “like the sun rising from the deep.” Pico imagined God addressing his creation:

"I have placed thee at the center of the world, that from there thou mayest more conveniently look around and see whatsoever is in the world. Neither heavenly nor earthly, neither mortal nor immortal have We made thee. Thou . . . art the molder and maker of thyself; thy mayest sculpt thyself into whatever shape thou dost prefer. Thou canst grow downward into the lower natures which are brutes. Thou canst again grow upward from thy soul’s reason into the higher natures which are divine."

If we insist on a definition of the core Renaissance ideal, we could do worse than “thou art the molder and maker of thyself.” Pico and many other writers insisted on the essential goodness and perfectibility of man, as well as the transformative power of art and the humanities. In the Middle Ages, man was cast into shadows by the twin institutions of feudalism and the Catholic Church. The rapid breakdown of that existing order—driven by the dynamic economic and political changes noted above—brought individual man back into the classical sunlight and irrevocably altered our consciousness and our sense of personal identity.

Jacob Burckhardt aptly captures the transformation:

"Man was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family or corporation—only through some general category. In Italy this veil first melted into air; an objective treatment and consideration of the state and of all the things of this world became possible. The subjective side at the same time asserted itself with corresponding emphasis; man became a spiritual individual, and recognized himself as such."

We can see this recognition and celebration of the individual in the paintings of the Renaissance. We can even hear it behind the soaring, searing harmonies of the great masters of polyphonic church music: Josquin des Prez (ca. 1450–1521), Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525/6–1594), and Thomas Tallis (ca. 1505–1585), who, along with his younger pupil and colleague William Byrd (1539/40–1623), was literally granted a monopoly on polyphonic music by Queen Elizabeth. And it is laid plainly on the surface in Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (1607), the earliest opera still in the modern repertoire. If ever there was an art form that focuses on the individual, in triumph and desperation, it is opera, the modern heir to Greek tragedy. 

The ten authors we will study in this book all played important roles in the development of the subjective side of individual consciousness. They provided us with a new vision of men and women as makers and molders of themselves. Simultaneously, they attempted a more or less objective treatment of the state and the things of this world. In the tension between those two perspectives lies much of their most fruitful, as well as their most comic, work. 

Petrarch (1304–1374) embodies this divided consciousness, though he is never deliberately comic. If ever there were a writer who took himself with unrelieved seriousness, it is Petrarch. He invented the sonnet form as an intense and condensed way to convey thoughts and emotions. His letters to fellow scholars are a rallying cry for humanism and the study of classical texts. And his private account of his own spiritual turmoil shows that he recognized the inherent tension, denied by others, between humanism and Catholicism. Although his dates would seem to situate him in the medieval world of Dante and Boccaccio, he is in fact remarkably modern and deserves his place in the vanguard of the Renaissance.

Erasmus (ca. 1466–1536) was a best selling anthologizer and popularizer of classical adages. He was a strong advocate for the power of a humanist education in shaping Christian citizens and leaders. But he also had a taste for satire. He may be the first writer to stress the importance, or at least the inevitability, of folly in everyday life. That is a point his contemporary, Martin Luther (1483–1546), should have understood but did not. Despite his dark, counter Renaissance view of human nature, Luther had complete faith in his own infallibility. He took Erasmus’s measured calls for church reform and turned them into an uncompromising attack on the pope and the corruption of the church, seeking to remake religion in his own image. Erasmus was caught in the middle, between a reactionary church and a bomb throwing Luther, and his efforts to find a middle ground were condemned by both.

Machiavelli (1469–1527) also took a dark view of human nature. His advice to the Medici prince whom he hoped would unite Italy and drive out foreign invaders was thoroughly pragmatic and deliberately amoral. Although he favored a republican form of government like that of ancient Rome, Machiavelli was willing to settle for a competent strongman, and he thought that Christian values had no role to play in the political rough-and-tumble necessary to obtain and retain power. If you want to be a Christian saint, he advised, join a monastery and stay out of politics. 

Thomas More (1478–1535) is more famous as a Catholic martyr than a great writer. But he was England’s most important humanist and a close friend of Erasmus before he set himself against Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon and England’s consequent divorce from the Catholic Church. More’s Utopia is a slight book, yet it has resonated through the centuries and still generates strong opinions as to both the possibility and the desirability of the society he depicts. More shared a love of satire with his close friend Erasmus, and he deliberately suffused Utopia with a teasing ambiguity.

Castiglione (1478–1529) turned his attention away from the prince and toward the courtiers who serve him. His imagined courtier is the perfect Renaissance man: educated, articulate, and skilled in all the arts of pleasing and impressing others. His most important quality is sprezzatura, a word coined by Castiglione, which refers to an almost superhuman grace and ease, a studied nonchalance that disguises the tremendous effort that goes into any form of mastery. Castiglione’s courtier is truly the maker and molder...

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Verlag
Prometheus Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2080
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1633885186
ISBN 13 
9781633885189
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
400
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
Utrecht
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