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:
From reading Thomas a Kempis's, "Imitation of Christ" and Pico della Mirandola's, "Of the Dignity of Man," one gets out of them two different opinions of what course in life a man should take. Thomas a Kempis speaks of mankind as lowly and almost unworthy of God's love except through a live of solitude and service. Mirandola writes on how God has given us the freedom to choose the course of our lives as long as we remain reverent. Thomas a Kempis speaks of how "wretched this world is" and glorifies Gods heavenly kingdom. Mirandola on the other hand says that God made us so we could "fashion thyself in whatever shape thou shalt prefer." I believe this statement tells us that we have the freedom to choose and also the world is what we make of it.
As for "In the Name of the Rose," we see a little of both men's essays in physical form. For Thomas a Kempis we see the monks as they should be, in solitude and service, forsaking most worldly objects. We see them with less freedom to think on their own, while on the other hand William of Baskerville is showing us more of Mirandola's theory. We see William with an astrolabe and we hear of other times when he has questioned tradition. So we see that even though William is being reverent, he has chosen his own way to go about it. In this film, the viewer can almost see the changing of the guard between the thoughts and ideas of Thomas a Kempis to those of Pico della Mirandola's.
Thomas a Kempis believes that a mans life should be one of strict service to God, that nothing should interfere with one's prayer as we see in his quote, "Let thy thinking be on the high God and let thy prayer be lifted up unto Christ without intermission." He believes that there is no need for any material things other that sustenance to continue to serve God, as we see here, "nothing so defouleth and entangleth men's hearts as impure love in created things." We also get an idea of how strongly a Kempis felt one should be meek in order to be closer to God, "The meek man God defendeth and delivereth; the meek man He loveth and comforteth; to the meek man He bareth Himself; to the meek man He granteth great grace, and after his humbling He lifteth him in glory; to the meek man He showeth His secrets and draweth him and calleth him sweetly."
Mirandola believes that each mans purpose is to seek his own way to praise God. Mirandola holds man in the highest regards believing that, "Man is the intermediary between creatures, the intimate of the gods, king of the lower beings, by the acuteness of his senses, by the discernment of his reason and the light of his intelligence the interpreter of nature, the interval between fixed eternity and fleeting time…" He says that we "are the most fortunate of beings, and consequently worthy of all admiration." This goes against just about everything a Kempis stresses in his essay. Mirandola believes that man is too special to just sit by and be meek, but to be the "someone to ponder the rationality of so great a work, to love its beauty, and to wonder at its vastness."
We get the feeling that the time between the two essays had an incredible impact on how people lived their lives in the years to come. We see the popular frame of mind go from absolute religion to that of the absolute humanism. Albeit the renaissance man didn't just up and drop religion, he just decided to praise Him in ways that were more aesthetically pleasing.