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:
Thomas á Kempis in his Imitation of Christ seems to be calling mankind toward the traditional "Christian" values. He makes a call for meekness and for men to humble themselves before God. He makes a pitch for the greatness of the afterlife and that these Earthly things are but transient and that the true glory is in heaven. He may have been laying the foundation for church control of the masses. If the penurious masses can be convinced that being poor is good and toiling away on Earth will reap benefits a hundred fold in the afterlife then the nobility may be able to keep the peace and the wealth.
Oration on the Dignity of Man by Pico della Mirandola represents the hubris of mankind and the anthropocentric ideal. Man the king of the lower beings(if armed with technology) either created God in his own image or God created him in his own image(depending on your disposition to theology) is second only to God in the natural heirarchy of life as he proclaims in this excerpt "There as the sacred
mysteries relate, Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones hold the first places; let us, incapable of
yielding to them and intolerant of a lower place, emulate their dignity and their glory. If we have
willed it, we shall be second to them in nothing. " Mirandola expresses the views that mankind is going to carry into the Renassaince and beyond these ideas justify the exploitation of natural resources and the blind march onward destroying much of what lies in our wake. This idea of man(man of course referring to European man) being the ruler of the Earth leaves precious few eddies for native peoples and indigeous species to find respite. That said one may be able to say that Mirandolas passage reflects mans growing confidence to master the environment in a way never before imagined.
The Name of the Rose shows both of these ideas and one other. The vast majority of the prelates in the movie represent the view that the meek shall inherit the Earth except that when you are directly serving the Lord you do not have to always be so meek or humble, hell not even disdain worldly things(I suppose there must be some kind of Earthly reward for years of such devotion and prayer). This would be the wealthy mans version of Christianity, an attempt to balance the indulgences that make life a little easier and the deprivations requisite of a "holy communion".
William of Baskerville represents the early move towards they ideas expressed by Mirandola by his possession of the early tools of navigation (possibly represening man burgeoning mastery of the environment esp. the "rest of the world" so long as you don't fall off of the edge when you get there. William also shows some reason and rationalism in his investigation of the murders. Using a little bit of the "Scientific Method" in his inquiry he falls back to his heretical ways.
The following are a couple of quotes from the Name of the Rose that I felt were maybe entertaining and enlightening :
"I find it difficult to convince myself that God would have introduced
such a foul being into creation without endowing her with some virtues, hmmm?"
This could be an early pro womyn comment from William of Baskerville, at that time it may not have been to wise to completely call for gender equity esp. for a repentent heretic but a little sarcastic irony could be taken the correct way, maybe.
"Laughter kills fear, and without fear there can be no faith, because without
fear of the Devil there is no more need of God."
Jorge de Burgos almost sums it up right here save for this argument doesn't address the transient nature of laughter or comedy because you can only laugh so long and then reality is still there when you cease laughing.
The dichotomy between the Middle Ages and the Renassaince is just about plain as day but the passage from Mirandola seems to reflect a more subtle form of this division by continuing reference to the divine and maintaining the churches throne.