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:
It is truely amazing how disasters such as the Black Death and such can change an entire way of thinking and how human beings view the world. The Renaissance had a much more realistic way of thinking , writing and creating art from the Medieval period when it was enough to believe and have faith in God. This reversal in human veiw has been depiced in the two writings "Imitation of Christ" by Thomas Kempis and "Oration on the Dignity of Man" by Pico della Mirandola. Kempis shows how much the people of the medieval period relied and lived by their faith in christ. Where as, Mirandola depicts how the renaissance people had a tendency to not except God as the whole of their lives.
In "Imitation of God" written in the medieval period tells that you should live for and by God. In this, you should live your life in a manner that your purpose is to live a good and ruly life and if you do "thou shalt see the kingdom come to thee." In relation to God and othersyou must humble yourself and lower yourself below all else and never think of yourself as better or higher than another being. Kempis and other's of that day, believed that you should live life for God and live a strict life with no real possession. Live life for death so you can go to the "Kingdom of God." In the movie "The Name of the Rose" the character Jorge in some aspects has this way of thinking. He believes strongly that laughter is evil and that it is a pleasure that could prohibit you to be summoned to Heaven. Generally all the monks in the movie and monks in reality still live this belief. They live to humble themselves to God and lower themselves below others. Pleasure in any form of feeling or possession is prohitted. Work and prayer is the motto.
In "Oration on the Dignity of Man," the veiw is more of a every Man for himself veiw. Man's place in life is is between God and lower creatures. It is believed God has given life for you to do with as you will and the resources constrained but are to be used by human as they would like. It is now allowed to "fashion theyself in whatever shape thou shalt prefer." So, basically God gives life and the resources to earth, but once on earth, it is up to mankind to do with as they wish, but preferably wisely and unselfishly. Doubt of God and questions arise in the renaissance from such things as the Black Death and such disasters, referencing to Fiero's "Humanistic Tradition," that caused people to turn away from each other at first, than later as they realized that prayer nor punishment could drive away this evil death, they lost faith in God, too. Doubts of God and Heaven arose. This was depicted not only in the writings, but also in the art. As shown in the video "Florence: City of Man" the sculptures showed a more realistic veiw. The statues had faces that depicted death and an overall sadness and in some cases doubtfullness. It was a question of where they would go after death. In this renaissance veiw, it seems that possibly Man is keeping in the possibility of God in case of a heaven or hell and also for an answer to being. In the movie "The Name of the Rose" the character William has this type of view in a sense that he isn't quick to assume the happenings are of an evil spirit and does not rely on prayer and God to fix the problem. Also, he had tools of science to do with his life and use the resources of the earth as he wishes. He also does not agree that laughter is sinful and that pleasure of all kinds in your life will cause you a bad life after death.
The renaissance view is clearly not as reliant on God as the medieval view of life. When something in life fails, especially as big as God, in a long time of crises, death and loss, such as the Black Death, it is hard to go back to complete reliance of Him. And though they still believed of God's existence, it wasn't to live your life all for Him. The lingering belief may have had to do with fear along with no other explanation of life, or death, or anything.