Book of the Courtier: A Norton Critical Edition Book

How in god's name do you rate a book you read for a class in two days when you haven't read a whole book in two weeks

I think what I found interesting about this is the parallelism between today and later; ideals and mistakes and the desire for perfection. Through his set of Renaissance-era conversations in Book of the Courtier, Castiglione suggests an ideal - the one way to be a man, the one way to be a woman, imitation of man after man after man. It is perhaps important to view Courtier as a work of its time; while Castiglione may likely share ideals with the participants, this is not only about the qualities of a perfect court, but about the priorities of men & women in the world they live within.

One of the Courtiers sums up the level of expectation for an ideal perfectly with this list:
"Therefore, let the man we are seeking be exceedingly fierce, harsh, and always among the first, wherever the enemy is; and in every other place, humane, modest, reserved, avoiding ostentation above all things…" (25)
A perfect Duke must exhibit perfect duality of strength and humanity, and demonstrate it perfectly in both situations, in other words, the balance of sprezzatura. This expresses the Renaissance ideal of perfect duality: it is not good to be talented at one thing, and rather, we must all be talented in many areas.

This stands as a contrast to Western culture today. While some level, we in Western culture are expected to exhibit perfection in many areas at once - for example, people are generally expected to be fairly beautiful and charismatic to be well-liked - many among our culture recieve popularity and success via only one talent. In the Renaissance, it was considered important to be all things, and flaws were not forgiven; in the US, we regularly elect politicians who are widely known to be somewhat rude.

Another, perhaps more relevant, aspect of the Courtier's discussion on Renaissance values is demonstrated here:
"And just as among women the name of purity, once stained, is never restored, so the reputation of a gentleman whose profession is arms, if ever in the least way he sullies himself through cowardice or other disgrace, always remains defiled before the world and covered with ignominy." (22)

In this world, mistakes are not an accepted part of life; they are life-destroyers, leaving your name defiled forever. This, in contrast to the first point, does parallel Western culture.

Recent political discourse in our culture especially has often focused on the growth of "callout culture;" the idea of calling out "problematic" - racist, sexist, homophobic, or just plain awful - things that celebrities do. This culture definitely has good results: when used correctly, it can take away from the normalization of homophobic and racist comments in our culture. But it can lead to a culture, especially on social media, of publicly shaming people for minor actions; expressing political viewpoints that may be liberal, but are not liberal enough. This can lead to people, especially minors, being afraid of behaving "badly" not because they care about the feelings of other people, but because they are afraid of public shaming - definite parallel.

Another similarity comes in the idea that women may be stained more easily than men; the idea of calling out celebrities often seems to apply to women far more than it does to men, and callouts often follow them for longer. But that's another topic.

So while Renaissance society is not always the same as ours, it is often similar. And while I found this book itself rather boring, I find it interesting that the past is so like the present.

Blog | Goodreads | Twitter | Instagram | Youtube