From David Mayernik,
August, 2000
Dear
Poliphilo,
How does one learn to
think like a Humanist? Not, that is, learn Latin or Greek,
but how does one achieve that mental equipoise of rigor and
sprezzatura that characterizes
Renaissance Humanist works of art? If that equipoise could
be recovered, we would be in a position to sustain a true
renaissance of the humanist tradition that aspired to equal
or exceed the best of our heritage; Humanism, unlike
neo-classicism, is heroically optimistic, and to be
humanistic is to deeply love the past while courageously
desiring to surpass it on its own terms.
I would say that equipoise is the
result of simultaneous Surrender and Engagement: a surrender
to an apprenticeship with past masters, to the importance of
myth and of history, to beauty, and to the demands of
illusion; and an engagement with the development of skill,
and the acquisition of knowledge in many fields. It is not
an end product of learning, in the sense that it does not
come after acquiring information sequentially; it is,
rather, about sporadic moments of realization after long
immersion in the Humanist mind - as it is expressed in their
works of art and writings, and in their history. The goal
therefore is not knowledge per se, but a furor
poeticus, a poetic fury, divine madness, possession
by the Muses. Knowledge is only the key that opens the gate
of this reverie.
Maybe that is why love is such a
common theme in Humanist writing (like your Hypnerotomachia, or in Dante and
Petrarch); we are talking about passion, after all, whether
artistic or amorous. If classical restraint is part of this
Humanist mind, it is more a mask hiding a smile, or a bridle
on passion that not so much stops it as keeps it from going
off course.
"The third type of possession and madness is
possession by the Muses. When this seizes upon a gentle and
virgin soul it rouses it to inspired expression in lyric and
other sorts of poetry, and glorifies countless deeds of the
heroes of old for the instruction of posterity. But if a man
comes to the door of poetry untouched by the madness of the
Muses, believing that technique alone will make him a good
poet, he and his sane compositions never reach perfection,
but are utterly eclipsed by the performances of the inspired
madman."
--Plato, Phaedrus, trans. Walter
Hamilton, New York, Penguin Books, p.48
We have to surrender to Rome in order
to recover that possession by the Muses.
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