The Renaissance

Hello! You know, I really like blogs, and I wish I used mine more.

As with akinney and Michael, I have always had a love of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In fact, my favorite classes have always been medieval lit courses, or Celtic mythology, or Shakespeare. In fact, I am writing my thesis on Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur and its connections to J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion, which actually, now that I think about it, has some rhetorical elements to it, too. It's everywhere, isn't it? I also attend Renaissance faires whenever I can, and have a great time at them. (If you haven't been to Shrewsbury, the local summer faire, you should check it out.) My mind, for some reason, is drawn to the past, and particularly to medieval Europe. I have also taken a few courses about religion, so don’t be too surprised if this post deals with that a lot. Anyway, on with the rhetoric discussion!

So, we are talking about the rhetoric of the Renaissance. I find it very interesting that, after so many years (centuries even), thinkers could rediscover these classical works and start learning from them again. It just blows me away, to be honest, that ancient Greeks and Romans could be studied and followed so intensely after having been buried for so long. It makes me wonder if this could have happened before. Could there have been a great rhetorician before the time of Corax and Tisias? Could it have been suppressed, just as the Christians did in the Middle Ages, only to be revitalized by the Greeks? As unlikely as it sounds, I don't see why it couldn't have happened that way.

I also wonder why, after so long, ancient ideas of rhetoric were able to resurface during the Renaissance. To me, it seems as if the Middle Ages were "dark" because the Church, no doubt trying to look out for itself, tried so suppress so many resources people had for learning, not the least of which was rhetoric. Why was rhetoric dangerous to the Church? Because, if people had the knowledge to use rhetoric, they could see through the Church's ploys and resist conversion. So, when people outside of the Church were able to access the classical texts and understand what they meant, it opened a whole new way for them to resist the Church. This is what allowed Martin Luther to create one of the first Protestant faiths, after all. Is that what the Renaissance is all about, then? The ability to fight the Church? In some ways, it could be argued that this is what the “Enlightenment” referred to.

What I found most interesting, though, was the Church’s “conversion” to using many of the same educational methods that were being used in the secular arena after these classical texts became public again. It was, after all, the only way the Church could remain competitive, for lack of a better word, with the secular world. In other words, if the Church had not adopted some of these same educational ideas and techniques, it could easily have crumbled. The fact that the Church remained so adaptable during this time could be one of the only things that kept it from crumbling. In some ways, the current papacy could learn a few things from the Church of the Renaissance.

Well, I hope that I have offered some ideas for discussion and conversation. I would be interested to hear what you think about the ideas I have presented

Until next time…