Humanism key quotes Flashcards
Samuel Daniel, ‘Musophilius’
‘O blessed letters that combine in one
All ages past, and make one live with all….
Power above powers, O heavenly eloquence!
That with the strong reign of commanding words,
Dost manage, guide, and master the eminence
OF men’s affections, more than all their swords’
Jonson, ‘feign a commonwealth…’
‘he which can feign a commonwealth (which is a poet), can govern it with counsels, strengthen it with laws, correct it with judgements, inform it with religion, and morals…the poet is the nearest borderer upon the orator, and expresseth all his virtues, though he be confined to numbers; is his equal in ornament, and above him in his strengths’
Marvell, ‘Tom May’s death’
‘Then is the poet’s time…
and single fights forsaken virtue’s cause’
Jonson, ‘Discoveries’
on imitation
‘To all the observations of the ancients, we have our own experience: which, if we will use, and apply, we have better means to pronounce. It is true that they opened the gates, and made the way…but as guides, not commanders’
‘imitation, to be able to convert the substance, or riches of another poet, to his own use’
Milton, Of Education
‘‘the aim then of learning is…regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him’
should aim to train in ‘offices both private and public, of peace and war’
Ascham, ‘The Schoolmaster
‘ye know what hurt ye do that care not for words but for matter and make a divorce betwixt the tongue and the heart’
Vives, ‘The Transmission of Knowledge’
‘princes’ and ‘learned men’ as ‘mutual helps’
Jonson, ‘Discoveries’
Of the prince
‘a prince without letters, is a pilot without eyes. All his government is groping…’
Cicero, ‘On the Orator’
‘complete orator’ upholds the ‘dignity’ and ‘safety’ of both himself and his state
Quintillian, ‘the education of the orator’
Must be a ‘good man’
should be a ‘wise man’ in the Roman sense…..one who reveals himself as a true man, not in the discussions of the study, but in the actual practice and experience of life’
‘the orator’s duty is not merely to instruct, but also to move and delight his audience’
Plutarch, The education of children
‘I regard as perfect…those who are able to combine and mingle political capacity with philosophy’
Three forms of life – practical, contemplative, enjoyment – must be combined to be fulfilling
Why does Phyllis Rackin suggest that character becomes more important in the REnaissance?
Emphasis on human autonomy rather than upon ‘transcendental teleology’
What does Paul Oskar Kristeller note
The glorification of man in early Renaissance thought; theroises that the emphasis on man’s total depravity in the emergent Protestant thought is a reaction to this
What does Brunhilda Raven emphasise as central to humanism?
Dialogue
How does Mary Crane suggest the Italian Renaissance differed from the English?
Whilst the Italian REnaissance was essentially “pagan”, the humanism of England was profoundly Christian
This was enabled by the practice of sententiae - as allowed pick and choose approach, rahter than having to embrace the entirety of classical works
