Renaissance Humanists
Francesco Petrarch (1304-1375) gave up his education as a lawyer to read classic poetry and romantic love. He would write beautiful sonnets about Laura, a woman he saw in church but refused to identify. He loved to write long letters to his friends, to Church leaders and monarchs, to dead authors like Homer, Cicero, and Livy. Petrarch regretted that he had not been born in the heroic days of the Roman Republic. In his travels, he purchased ancient books which survived from Greece and Rome and strongly advocated the idea of public libraries. Petrarch has been called "the first modern man" and "the father of the Renaissance". His best known Latin works are his five hundred letters, all plainly written with an eye to a readership beyond the persons addressed.
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) met Petrarch and was inspired to devote the rest of his life to the study of Greek and other humanistic concerns. However, even before this meeting, he was quite an accomplished poet and storyteller. In his secular classic, the Decameron, we see medieval courtly themes begin to give way to those of modern society. Petrarch saw the beauty in nature, woman, and man. He loved music and admired fine painting. He argued that Aristotle was fallible and preferred Plato. He considered philosophical arguments useful only in the making of debaters not wise men. Though personally vain his writing seems emotionally sincere.
Christine de Pizan (1365-1431) was the first woman to earn her living through writing (The Book of the City of Ladies) and her topic was a limited social criticism of the treatment of women by male writers, making Christine the founder of feminism in Western culture. It is true that until lately in just the western world, men had written of women as lesser creations full of every vice. This misogynistic view, having a hatred and distrust of women, began with the blaming of Eve for original sin and flourished in the philosophical and social writings of antiquity. Men considered women as property whose principal function was to produce legitimate offspring. It is understandable that Christine admits to having detested herself and her gender and wonders why God did not allow her to be born a man so that she could serve Him better.
It was in this state of despair that she began the book which would bring her to public notice for defending her own sex against the ideas expressed in The Lamentations of Matheolus who built upon ideas expressed in Romance of the Rose and its additions. Christine writes that she was approached by three Ladies-Reason, Rectitude, and Justice-whose task is to balance things out in the world and who promise, by their speeches, to help her build a city of ladies as a refuge and defense against all assailants of women. By responding to Christine's questions about misogyny in literature, Reason provides the foundation of the city, Lady Rectitude builds the walls, and Lady Justice supplies the roof. The city will be filled with virtuous women.
Desiderius Erasmus (1466?-1536) left a monastic life and began a lifelong pursuit of classical studies. He wrote intelligently on a variety of subjects including letter writing and the education of boys. Known as "Prince of the Humanists", Erasmus wrote Praise of Folly while residing in the home of Thomas More in England. It is considered a work of genius. The entire work is a double negative in which folly in praising herself is actually censuring folly which means that wisdom would presumably be forced to praise folly. The theses that the fool's life is the happiest life takes up half the work. Such satire is optimistic and constructive. It generates
Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) may have been influenced by his friend Erasmus' Praise of Folly which was published shortly before More wrote Utopia. This short work describes an ideal society on an imaginary island. More condemns war, poverty, and religious intolerance. In the first book of Utopia More sides with Italian humanists saying that commitment to public responsibilities and active participation in affairs of state are essential to the humanist movement. The second and more famous book of Utopia describes the ideal commonwealth itself. It is a carefully regulated, almost monastic community in which private property-along with greed and pride- has been abolished. More, true to his philosophy, gave his life for remaining loyal to the pope and refusing to recognize Henry VIII as head of the English Church. His last words were: "I die the King's good servant, but God's first."
View the movie "A Man for All Seasons" if time allows.
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