THE GROWTH OF HUMANISM

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 INTRODUCTION

In this unit, we introduce you to Humanism and the various types of humanism, as well ashow humanism developed across the ages. It is important that you have a comprehensive knowledge of the Humanist aspect of English Literature as it operated in the Medieval and Renaissance, so that it won‟t appear as if you have learnt the course without this vital aspect. A sure way to be a successful student of the course is to know what constitutes Humanism, the conditions that drive the humanists into their various philosophies, how the English society accepted or viewed them, as well as how they fared over the ages. The definition of the concept of Humanism, types like Christian Humanism, Classical Humanism, and how the term developed overtime, the examination of the activities of some Humanists of the period, will sharpen your comprehension about humanism and the course generally. Below are some of the objectives of this unit.

3.1 THE DEFINITION OF HUMANISM

We may define Humanism as the rejection of a religion in favour of a belief in the advancement of humanity by its own efforts, a cultural movement of the Renaissance based on Classical studies. It is the belief that people can live using their intelligence and reason, rather than depending on a god or religion. Someone who believes in humanism is called a Humanist (see Collins English Dictionary &Thesaurus, 2006 and Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners, 2007).

In addition, in view of the dynamic nature of our world, and how the concept of humanism evolved to cater for the various emerging spheres across human disciplines, we may attempt to give a wider/broadened definition to cater for the newly evolving aspects not mentioned in the definitions already given above.

Based on the above, we may define humanism from a more general perspective - as a renewed system of rational learning that propagates human ability in a self- confident manner, for the evolving dictates/demands of the present, in order to achieve socio-economic, cultural and religious worldview.

3.2 TYPES OF HUMANISM

Our definition of the concept of Humanism justifies the existence of many varieties, some of which are briefly explained below.

Secular Humanism emerged from 18th century rationalism. Scientists, historians and philosophers of the 19th century embraced its growth under the umbrella of humanistic organisations like the American Rationalist Federation, and the Council of Democratic and Secular Humanism.

Literary Humanism belongs to the humanities and literary culture.

Cultural Humanism originated from Greece and Rome and evolved through European history but now make up a good part of European law, ethics, science, politics, theory and history.

Naturalistic (Modern) Humanism, which is of secular and religious origin, is also called Ethical Humanism or Democratic Humanism.

Scientific Humanism has been described by one of its proponents, Cerliss Lamont, as a naturalistic philosophy that relies primarily on reason, science, human passion and democracy, thus anti-supernaturalism in nature.

Philosophical Humanism (which includes part of Modern and Christian Humanism) focuses on human needs and interests.

Renaissance Humanism is premised in the philosophy that people are capable of differentiating between truth and falsehood. It developed at the end of the Middle Ages.

Religious Humanism evolved out of universalism and Unitarianism, based on ethical culture and practices.

The figure below explains the general features (strands) of Humanism:

Fig. 4 Features of Humanism

• Aligns with technological development
• Compassionate
• Enlightenment
• Freedom
• Human
• Happiness
• Conscious of the age/universe
• It is a school of thought
• It is an accomplishment, not a doctrine
• In tune with social taught
• Promotes human values

3.3 CHRISTIAN HUMANISM

Christian Humanism is formed based on Christian ethics, codes or philosophy. It is a large part of the humanism framework of the Renaissance period; it is an ideological affirmation of Biblical contexts and doctrines based on God ‟s moral standard.

Christian humanism began with the traditional teaching and belief that people are created in the image of God, a process known in Latin as Imago Dei, the material worth of the individual. Education was controlled by Christian clerics, as monasteries were upgraded to centres of educational learning from which universities grew in the 12th century. Classical Greek and Roman authors were studied - Homer‟s Iliad, Plato‟s Dialogues, Aristotle‟s categories and speeches of Galen, Strabo, Dioscurides, amongst others - the same way in which the Bible was read in homes.

Human logic began as an aspect of Greek philosophy (syllogistic reasoning) and informed the process of theology in the 11th century, but was later declared illegal in the reign of Alexios I Komnenos (1081 – 1118) as thinkers were imprisoned. But primitive humanism began when Catholic papacy rose in favour of academic and religious elements. Humanists then gained popularity in the Renaissance with the effort of Petrarch, who wrote in Oration on the Dignity of Man that a person has the free will to travel up and down a moral scale with God and Angels at the top and Satan located at the bottom. With time, Christian humanism developed a strong footing in England and spread beyond it.

3.4 CLASSICAL HUMANISM

This is a type of Humanism patterned after the characteristics of ancient Greek and Roman civilization. It was influenced by their art, culture and religion, and architecture, intellectualism, musical composition, restraint, standard, painting, education and conservatism.

3.5 HUMANISM AND THE GROWTH OF THE ARTS

Humanism, which has been traced to the writings of Justin Matyr in the 2nd century, an early theological figure of the early Christian church, had its roots from classical culture and philosophy. The principles of letters written by Basil of Caesar and Gregory of Nyssa who were Cappadocian fathers were early records of the use of secular knowledge and experience. The fall of the Roman Empire and decline of her civilization facilitated the need for a more entrenched principle of Christ and Christological view of society. Although the education of the medieval period was under the control and powerful influence of the Church, as the monasteries were the seat of learning, Charlemagne, in the 12th century, suggested that scholars should set up designated places of higher learning that could be christened „universities ‟ .

The form of Christian education in the period was reduced to the rudiments of letters of Basil or the homilies of Gregory Nazianzus, as well as learning the Bible from one‟s parents. The aspects of the Greek philosophy did not start until the 11th century when it emerged to push up the process of theology in the Byzantine Empire and Western European circles. We should remember that Medieval Europe had interest in and maintained the activity of a number of scholars who were active in impressive scientific disciplines most of which were inherited or carried over from the Greek, Latin and Arabic speaking cultures and tradition. The mental attitudes and scholarly interest of the people were scientific in nature, as early as the Mesopotamian civilization before 3000BC. There were early records of the invention of printing technology on cloth under the influence of Buddhism in China, printed by the use of the oldest wood-block called the Diamond Sutra in 11 May 868.

The scientific revolution of the period reformed the masses and harassed the power of political and religious authorities. There was a sharp increase in literacy and this broke the monopoly of the literate elites. European vernacular languages flowered to gradual displacement of Latin as the lingua franca. With the establishment of Western universities like Bologna, Padua, Paris and Oxford which emanated from the Gregorian Reform, Cathedral Schools, initially meant to train clerics, became a training school for talented young men who were not only interested in studying Medicine, but Law and Liberal Arts.

Gradually, the dawn of the Renaissance experienced an explosion of the Arts – humanism, with the efforts of the early humanistic figure, Petrarch, who contributed generously to language and literature, promoted the development of the humanities, which strengthened and prioritised ancient languages including Greek and Latin as well as classical writers and rhetoric. Within this framework, the existing development merged with Christian humanists who practised scriptural teachings, patristic writings, ecclesiastical reform, Hebrew and clerical education.

There was renewed confidence in Christian humanism in the Renaissance with more Christians studying philological sources of the Greek New Testament and Hebrew Bible. With the reformation movement in full swing, new editions of the Bible were published: Erasmus of Rotterdam (A Catholic) and Martin Luther (an Augustan Priest) translated the Bible into German language; John Calvin, a Sorbonne theologian, wrote texts on the old and new testaments scripture, excluding the book of Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles and Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Songs of Songs, Second Epistle of John, Third Epistle of John and the Book of Revelation. He was respected for leading the vanguard for church proliferation in France, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland and parts of Germany. Thus the tradition of Christian humanism, enlightenment and progress in the Arts continued throughout and beyond the Renaissance. The enlightenment christened humanism as a form of secular liberal philosophy, and marked the beginning of what became known as Arts.

3.6 MAJOR HUMANISTS OF THE PERIOD

Prominent writers were distinguished by their contributions to the humanism of the Medieval Europe. They were not just noticed and read in the medieval and Renaissance, their works are still being studied up to the present, with special consideration to the various disciplines where they functioned. Some of the major humanists of the period are Plato (427BC-347BC); Petrarch (1304- 1374); Giovanni Boccacclo (1313- 1375); Coluccio Salutati (1331- 1406); Gasparno Barzizza (1360- 1430); Aristotle (384-322BC); Guarino Veronese (1374- 1460); and Niccolo Machiavelli (1469- 1527).

3.7 PLATO (427 - 347BC)

He was a Greek philosopher born in Athens. He was a friend of Socrates. He was on exile after the death of Socrates, returned to Athens in the 380s and began a school called the Academy. His works existed as dialogue. Some of his works are The Lion, Euthyphro, Protaguras and Georgia. The second part of his work includes The Crito, Apology, Phaedo, Symposium. The third collection of his works are Theaetetus, Parmenides, Timaeus, Sophistes, Philebus, as well as The Republic and The Laws. The latter are his two monumental treatises that have provided lasting appeal to philosophers across the ages. On his views on poetry and poets, whom he addressed as “creators of noble actions”, he has this to say:

Let their poems be song even though they may not be very musical… Nor shall anyone dare to sing a song which has not been approved by the judgment of the guardians of the laws, not even if his strain be sweeter than the songs of Thamyras and Orpheus, but only such poems as have been judged sacred and dedicated to the gods and such are the works of good men.

Above all, Plato approves poets for the state, but they must not be less than fifty years old. Such a poet must be talented and of great nobility, recognised in deeds and morals by the state.

3.8 ARISTOTLE (384-322BC)

He was born at Stagira in Macedon, Greece. He spent 20 years studying under Plato. Aristotle was widely traveled, and was later appointed a tutor under Philip of Macedon. He began a school in the Lyceum when he returned to Athens where students were taught logic, ethics, metaphysics, zoology, physics, rhetoric, politics and poetics. His works gave a new shape to Medieval Literature and was regarded as the source of knowledge in the Arab World and Latin West. In the 12th century, his excellence in knowledge and novel curriculum won a central place. His works influenced Spenser, Sidney, Dryden, Dr. Johnson, Donne and Sir Browne at the end of the 17th century. He was revered for his Poetics which

contributed immensely to the rise of neo-classicism and general literary theory and practice.

Aristotle‟s Poetics appears like an attempt to answer the critical questions raised by his teacher, Plato, who was concerned about the social, political and moral problems of Athens and how to transform the society to a disciplined one. Poetics traced the origin of poetry to the natural urge in man to imitate and the sense of pleasure he derives from imitation. Painful human experiences may also be pleasurable when watched on stage or read in the works of literature. He states that there is distinction between tragedy, comedy, poetry, dithyrambic, poetry and music and comedy. He insists that it is natural to imitate and that apart from music, all others imitate using language in metrics or metrical pattern. Only the poet imitates men in action, unlike the philosopher or historian who even when s/he writes inverse still does not qualify to be called a poet.

The focus of his Poetics is tragedy. He defines tragedy as the “imitation of an action that is serious, complete and of certain magnitude, in language embellished with each kind existing in separate parts of the play or in the form of action, not of narrative, through pity and fear affecting the proper purgation (Catharsis) of these emotions” . He disagrees with the view of Plato that poetry does not make one emotionally fat and intellectually lean, but drains one‟s emotions to brighten one‟s insight.

Aristotle argues that poetry does not imitate the inferior ideal, and that it does not concern itself with what has happened, but that which may happen; the possibility based on the law of probability. He also offers a comparison between poetry and history or philosophy. He explains:

…the difference between the historian and the poet is not in their utterances being in verse or prose. The difference lies in the fact that the historian speaks of what has happened, the poet of the kind of thing that can happen. Hence, also poetry is more philosophical serious business than history, for poetry speaks more of the universals, history of particulars.

Aristotle introduced and popularised the theory of form in literature, indicating the difference between a tragedy and comedy. Comparing life to a tragedy, the latter, according to him, has a beginning, middle and an end but with each part relating to the other. The tragic hero has a flaw (hamartia) that may not be his own making; hence as a mortal, his fall from fortune to misfortune may not be surprising. Aristotle further identified six elements of tragedy as plot, character, thought, diction, song, and spectacle; out of which plot occupies a central place, for it is the soul of tragedy. Tragic plot thus contains two elements: “peripeteia” (a reversal of fortunes), and “anagnorisis” (discovery or exposition).

Aristotle‟s Poetics indicates the philosopher‟s attempt to answer doubts raised by Plato to justify the existence of poets in any ideal Republic.

3.9 ZENO OF ELEA (490-430BC)

Zeno of Elea was an Italian pre-Socratic philosopher, inventor of the dialectic, famous for his paradoxes and a member of the Eleatic School. His rare philosophy earned him a citation in Aristotle‟s Physics. Zeno was reputed to be skillful in arguments. Taking on arguments from both sides, he produced about forty arguments, as recorded by Proclus in his Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides. Zeno gave the first examples of a method of proof called reductio ad absurdum, which means to reduce to the absurd. He was the first philosopher to deal with the earliest attestable accounts of mathematical infinity. Apart from his argument against motion, described in Aristotle ‟s Physics, his paradoxes challenged and inspired physicists, mathematicians and philosophers for centuries.

3.10 ST. AUGUSTINE (354 - 430BC)

Elected Bishop of Hippo, one of the intellectual centres of North Africa in 399, Augustine spent over thirty years writing and interpreting Christian theology and combating heresy. He wrote The Confession, the leading autobiography in Western history. Perhaps influenced by the nature of Hippo, the focus of lively debates on numerous theological issues, he authored The City of God, a voluminous treatise published in 413 and 426. He wrote City of God to explain that it was God‟s plan that Rome should decline and fall and that humanity may realize that Christianity was the salvation of mankind. He insists that there is divine relationship between history and Christianity, as both expose God‟s plan about the individual and the world. He cites Plato, Cicero, Herodotus, Tacitus, Aristotle and New and Old Testaments, combined with the interpretations and comments of the Church fathers of his time. The City of God, for instance, juxtaposes two cities, that of God and man. The latter reflects the city of Rome, with its abundant evils, which merit a decline and fall. St. Augustine wrote his experience, combined with a prediction into the future, while not ignoring history which he used to express his present. To him, The City of God is in the divine, which should be the main focus and desire of every Christian. The earth, therefore, should not betaken so seriously, because of its temporal characteristics and the inevitably transient nature of the individual.

Augustine studied ancient classics; hence he fused the idea of Plato and Christianity, the classical humanist‟s idea of form. He believed in the wisdom contained in classical philosophy and literature for the moral development of the individual. He was of the opinion that the classical virtue and philosophical- based beliefs of the Greeks will help prepare Christians for Christ.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE

Explain the major theological points addressed in St. Augustine‟s The City of God.

4.0 CONCLUSION

In this unit, we have defined the concept of humanism, identified and discussed the types of humanism. We have also explained humanism and the growth of the Arts. A comprehensive discussion of the humanistic efforts of Plato and Aristotle, Zeno of Elea and St. Augustine were also given.

5.0 SUMMARY

In this unit, you have learnt about:

. the definition of Humanism;

. humanism and its various types;

. the features that are common to Humanism;

. the relationship between Humanism and the Arts;

. the humanistic values of Plato, Aristotle, Zeno of Elea and St. Augustine.

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

1) What is Humanism?

2) Based on the definitions provided, define Humanism in your own words.

3) Outline the features that are common to all definitions of Humanism.

4) Choose and outline the achievements of one of the humanists treated in this unit.

5) Write briefly on the following types of Humanism:

(i) Classical humanism (ii) Christian humanism

7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READING

Blues, Lace (2000). The Humanism in Classical Humanists. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Cooper, Daniel (1984). Humanists and Medieval England. Toronto: Macmillan.

Drabble Margaret and Stringer Jenny (Eds.) (2007). Oxford Concise Companion

to English Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Grivin, Taylor (1964). Humanism. London: Penguin Books.