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Portrait of the Humanist as Proteus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Michel Jeanneret
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Is the perfection of a being a result of its perfectibility, that is to say its imperfection? Is the greatness of a human being a function of how much he is a man in the making? Can the human being elude all determination in order to construct itself freely or, at the very least, expose itself to an infinite number of potential destinies? This dream of absolute freedom was at times the humanists’ dream. The following paper will try to show that behind the Renaissance philosophy of existence lay the principles of incompletion and transformation; that these principles were the source both of the power of Renaissance philosophy and also of its irresolution, which is what places it on the threshold of modernity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 44 , Issue 174 , January 1996 , pp. 129 - 154
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

Notes

1. The Oratio de hominis dignitate serves as a preliminary discourse to the dispu tation (that did not take place) of the nine hundred theses, published in Rome in 1486, which Pic wanted to debate with other philosophers. The oratio appeared for the first time in a posthumous edition of the Oeuvres complètes. I am using here the translation by Yves Hersant, De la dignité de l'homme, Paris, 1993.

2. Ibid., p. 7.

3. Ibid., p. 7f.

4. Ibid., p. 13.

5. Ibid., p. 9.

6. Fabula de homine (1518), in: Opera omnia, 8 vols., Valencia, 1782-1790, Vol. 4, pp. 1-8. Engl. transl. in: E. Cassirer, P. Kristeller, and J.H. Randall Jr. (eds.), The Renaissance Philosophy of Man, Chicago, 1948, pp. 387-93.

7. M. Ficin, Théologie platonicienne (1482), Vol. 14, 3: "Sixième signe. L'âme tend à devenir toutes choses." I am quoting here from the translation by R. Macrel, Théologie platonicienne. De l'immortalité des âmes, 3 vols., Paris, 1964, Vol. 2, pp. 256-59.

8. Ibid., p. 257.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid., p. 258.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid., pp. 256f.

13. Montaigne Essais, Vol. 1, 3 (ed. by P. Villey), Paris, 1965, p. 15: "Nous ne sommes jamais chez nous, nous sommes toujours au-delà."

14. On Petrarch's movements see N. Mann, Petrarch, Oxford, 1984; see also T. M. Greene, "The Flexibility of the Self in Renaissance Literature," in: P. Demetz et al. (eds.), The Disciplines of Criticism: Essays in Literary Theory. Interpretations and History, New Haven, 1968, pp. 241-64.

15. Term by D. Letocha, "Preface," in: idem, Aequitas, Aequalitas, Auctoritas. Raison théorique et légitimation de l'autorité dans le XVe siècle européen, Paris, 1992, p. xii. See also the excellent article by D. Russell, "Conception of Self and the Generic Convention. An Example from the Heptameron," in: Sociocriticism, 4-5 (1986-87), pp. 159-83; T.M. Greene (note 14 above).

16. Letter 854 (19 July 1518) in: A. Gerlo and P. Foriers (eds.), Erasme. Correspon dance, 11 vols., Brussels, 1967, Vol. 3, p. 380, also for the following.

17. Letter 868 (Erasmus to Ambroise Leo, Louvain, 15 October 1518), in: ibid., p. 434.

18. Letter to Jean Botzheim, Basle, 30 January 1523, in: ibid., Vol. 1, p. 2.

19. Ibid., pp. 36-9.

20. See the comments on Herculei labores in: Adages.

21. L. Febvre, "Preface," in: J. Huizinga, Erasme, Paris, 1955, p. 8. Huizinga's biog raphy illustrates Erasmus's versatility.

22. To Erasmus's diatribe (De libero arbitrio, 1524), Luther responded with his De servo arbitrio.

23. Quoted in T.M. Greene (note 14 above), p. 249. In this piece one finds some very good pages on the sixteenth-century popularity of treatises on educa tion.

24. See, for example, De copia. Ratio studiorum. De civitate morum puerilium, Colloquia.

25. Vergerius quoted in: T.M. Greene (note 14 above), p. 249: "Dum faciles animi iuvenum, dum mobilis aetas."

26. H. Chamard (ed.), La Deffence et Illustration de la Langue françoyse, Vol. 1, 3, Paris, 1961, p. 27. See also Du Bellay, "Ample discours au Roy (…)," in: H. Chamard (ed.), Oeuvres poétiques, 6 vols., Paris, 1908-31, Vol. 6, p. 233.

27. Essais (note 13 above), Vol. 2, 17.

28. See Machiavelli's Prince, Castiglione's Le Courtisan, Della Casa's Galateo, and Guazzo's La Civil Conversazion, as well as numerous rhetoric treatises.

29. See, for example, Erasmus's Enchiridion Militis christiani and Calvin's Institu tion de la Religion chrétienne.

30. Rabelais, Gargantua, Ch. 14; M. Huchon (ed.), Oeuvres complètes, Paris, 1994, p. 43.

31. Ibid., Ch. 23, p. 65.

32. Ibid., p. 64.

33. Important comments on this in D. Russell's article (note 15 above).

34. I have tried to explain this phenomenon in "Le récit modulaire et la crise de l'interprétation. A propos de l'Heptaméron," in: Le Défi des signes. Rabelais et la crise de l'interprétation à la Renaissance, Orléans, 1994, pp. 53-74.

35. Essai (note 13 above), Vol. 1, 26, p. 152.

36. Ibid., p. 167.

37. Ibid., Vol. 3, 2, p. 804.

38. Ibid., Vol. 2, 37, p. 784.

39. Ibid., Vol. 3, 2, p. 804.

40. Ibid., p. 811.

41. Ibid., pp. 807, 811, 813, respectively.

42. See A. B. Giamatti, "Proteus Unbound: Some Versions of the Sea God in the Renaissance," in: P. Demetz et al. (eds.) (note 14 above), pp. 437-75.

43. I have used here N. Comes, Mythologie, ou Explication des Fables (…), Paris, 1627, p. 870.

44. Ibid.

45. V. Cartari, Le Imagini dei Dei de gli Antichi, Venice, 1571, p. 257.

46. Ronsard, Continuation des Amours, Vol. 1, 5, in: P. Laumonier (ed.), Oeuvres complètes, 20 vols., Paris, 1914-1975, Vol. 7, pp. 121f.

47. Metamorphose chrestienne, faite par dialogue, Geneva, 1561. The summary of the first part, given on the title page, points straight away to the importance accorded to the mobility of forms: "1. L'homme naturel; 2. L'homme difformé; 3. La transformation des ames; 4. Le vray Homme, ou l'Homme reformé." Another treatise by Pierre Viret (Dialogues du desordre qui est a present au monde, Geneva, 1545) is an early version of Metamorphose.

48. Metamorphose ("Advertissement"), f. Aiiv.

49. Dialogues, p. 733.

50. Metamorphose ("Advertissement"), f. Aiiv.

51. Metamorphose, pp. 113f.

52. Frank Lestringant in his Preface to his edition of Agrippa d'Aubigne's Les Tragiques (Paris, 1995, p. 10) refers to the same phenomenon: "Les Tragiques sont ainsi remplis de bien étranges métamorphoses: tyrans ‘allouvis,' qui quittent la table pour se ruer sur les humains à la manière de loups-garous, juges transformés en fauves parqués dans des tanières et ayant de la chair humaine entre les dents, roi travesti en courtisane, à perruque et vertugadin, courtisans en chiens et en singes, le Louvre en ménagerie, le Palais de Justice en Enfer, les églises en lupanars ou en cabinets d'aisance."

53. Metamorphose, p. 114.

54. Ibid., p. 110.