Humanities & Classics 1002
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Renaissance Forum
Humanities & Classics 1002 |
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In Reply to: PLEASE POST YOU FIRST REQUIRED POSTING AS A REPLY TO THIS posted by TOM BACIG on December 13, 1998 at 19:30:06:
The main contrasts between the medieval view and the Renaissance view of humankind concerns the freedom of choice and the purpose of life for the people of that time. In the medieval ages life was austere and simplistic. Humans were concerned with the divine and the heavenly world. The purpose of their life was to humble themselves in the eyes of God so that they could go to heaven. Most people felt trapped or condemned by sin. Thomas a Kempis emphasized that humans should humble themselves and trust in God. God would only accept the meek and the lowly. The common people were expected to obey and respect the authorities of the church. The leaders of the church claimed to be given divinity from God and therefore their teachings and instructions should be unquestioned. They were the only authority on the subjects of God and religion and heaven. The main focus of life was to do good deeds and to prepare oneself to get to heaven.
The changes in ideas brought about in the Renaissance are evident in what Mirandola wrote about the freedom of choice. Mirandola describes humans' status in the social structure as being changeable. He wrote that humans were put on earth in no fixed position. We could become as lowly as the animals that crawled the earth or we could become as high and heavenly as the angels. The purpose in life, then, became the pursuit of perfecting oneself. A person could seek to do this by increasing their knowledge not only of the heavenly world but also of the earthly world. In order to achieve perfection a person should explore the classics and rediscover the values of the world.
The Name of the Rose depicts the medieval life. The monks and the peasants were expected to respect and not question the bishop and archbishop and the inquisitor. It was not expected of the monks to seek to find the truth that lay behind the murders. With the concern for the heavenly or otherworldly, it is not surprising that the monks blamed the supernatural or the Devil for the murders. William of Baskerville brings in the ideas of the Renaissance in three areas. First of all he has the desire to seek the truth. This search for the truth is one step in putting aside the authority of the church and seeking to know on one's own. Individualism was an important part of the Renaissance. The second way in which William brings about Renaissance ideas is in his scientific approach to solving the mystery of the murders. Instead of using the supernatural as the cause of all of the deaths, William is willing to look for an earthly answer...a human answer. Humanism was another important part of the Renaissance. One other way in which William brings forth the essence of the Renaissance is in his devotion to books, whether they be of a heavenly subject or of an earthly/human subject. For example his desire to find and preserve the book written about laughing. In this effort William was depicting the rediscovering of the classic, which was another important part of the Renaissance.