Over the course of
history, marriage had long been thought of as a societal contract, arrangements
based on that which benefited families and society as a whole rather than the
fulfillment of individuals who desired to be together based primarily on
attraction. Arranged marriage, until the
emergence of romanticism, was the norm and it was not only condoned but
expected by church, state and within individual families. St. Francis of Assisi brought this idea to
the forefront, changing what had been seen as a possible heresy, erotic love,
into something that could be used for the overall greater good. As a close follower of the Franciscan way of
life though only a layman, Dante promoted this idea and attempted to live it
out to the best of his ability through his writing by expanding on the
inclusion of the feminine.
Having been exposed to courtly love at an early age, St.
Francis had the seed that eventually blossomed into the idea that romantic love
could be a pathway to praising God. He
believed that instead of taking love from God, which would be heresy, such love
could compliment and give opportunity to individuals to worship through
service. According to Professor
Ambrosio, bringing this idea to light was St. Francis’s greatest achievement
and legacy. The fruition of this idea
marked a significant change in philosophical thinking. The scholar Joseph Campbell classified this
change as a movement that marks the emergence of the modern conception of
individuality in the west.
Dante expanded on the idea set forth from St. Francis,
through his poetry, most notably in the Comedia. The Comedia was Dante’s personal testimony
about his conversion from sin to love.
For Dante, the embodiment of this love was given to him by the grace of
God in the woman Beatrice. By the time
he wrote the Comedia, Beatrice had long since passed away but in the epic poem,
she is the last person he sees before seeing God. In this, it is as if he is stating that his
love for her is the closest pathway to God, the one who draws him to the close
of his journey. This inclusion of the
feminine, according to Professor Ambrosio, was what could have been seen as the
real heresy.
Both St. Francis as well as Dante engage in Christian
humanism, which can be seen as the blending of both ideals of hero and
saint. St. Francis dreamed of becoming a
knight when he was young and lived this out to the best of his ability through
the relationship he had with his companion, St. Clare of Assisi. He used this relationship as a means to
express his devotion to Lady Poverty, an imagined heavenly lady who portrays
the feminine of God. It was through this
service, that St. Francis found his fulfillment though he had not found this
calling until he went through a deep depression in the midst of being a
prisoner of war. Dante, in writing his
epic poem, presented his vision of the convergence of the hero’s journey
through the lens of a saintly worldview.
By placing himself in the poem he reveals that he believed he was on the
hero’s journey in life.
Just as St. Francis and Dante had done before him,
Michelangelo had the hero’s drive to self fulfillment and the saint’s impulse
to serve a cause greater than oneself.
Michelangelo dreamed of harmonizing the two callings of hero and
saint. Michelangelo, according to his
contemporary, Giorgio Vasari, was the foremost authority on Dante and had also
been inspired by the Franciscan romantic ideal.
Through Michelangelo’s work, a struggle can be seen between his ecstasy,
which came at an early age and his agony, which remained with him until his
death. In the David, Michelangelo aimed
to show the magnificence of the heroic soul in the heroic body. By using David, from the Biblical story of
David and Goliath, he attempted to meld the physically perfect heroic body with
the Christian worldview. His
contemplative nature, which is an important characteristic of the heroic ideal,
exemplified his own internal struggle toward reaching this ideal. His creations, known as the Pietas, reveal to
us this internal struggle. The Roman
Pieta, a sculpture of absolute beauty drawn from the terrible moment of mother
losing child, displays Mary as the hero.
Larger than life, she sits as a throne for her dead son’s body. She is the hero embodied. The Christian symbolism of Mary and Jesus
invite the viewer in to look for the deeper meaning, lending the artwork itself
to the option of contemplation.
After these works, the Roman Pieta and the David,
Michelangelo falls into darkness. His
work no longer carries for him the significance it once did because the
commissions placed upon him take his view away from the contemplation that his
earlier works had so evidently shown. It
could be understood that Michelangelo felt he could not work within the heroic ideal
and that he could no longer contemplate as he once did within the framework of
his art. In the second Pieta,
Michelangelo places himself in place of Mary, holding Jesus up. This appears to be a statement that he could
no longer reconcile himself with his vocation or his God. He attempted to destroy this work and by
doing so, he revealed his inner turmoil.
For all living the heroic ideal, there must be a struggle. He very nearly destroyed the third Pieta to
the point that it is hard to decide if the statue is hopeful or a work of
despair. The viewer cannot tell which
way the bodies in the sculpture are headed, whether upward or downward, which
can signify to those looking for the depth of the work, whether the bodies are
leaning toward a life of meaning or giving into the absurdity of it all.
“He believed by virtue of the absurd; for there could be
no question of human calculation, and it was indeed the absurd that God
required it of him should the next instant recall the requirement.”
(Kierkegaard, 2009) Kierkegaard’s words,
speaking of Abraham’s potential sacrifice of his son to God, echo the longing
for the reemergence of the saintly ideal at a time when the world was changing
by leaps and bounds. The church was no
longer one large entity, as Luther had created the first great schism long
before and the rise of capitalism, liberalism and the nation-state had taken
over. When Kierkegaard wrote these
words, he was battling back the idea of rationality being the primary thought
of his day as opposed to the idea of faith in the absurd as the pathway to
fulfillment. Through Luther’s teachings
of believing in faith alone as the means of salvation, Kierkegaard attempted to
assert that believing in the absurd is the only way one can have faith. He
believed and made argument to his conviction that one must have faith and
abandon oneself to it or one must cling to something else and by clinging to
some other thing, one becomes trapped by it, taking away the freedom that such
a lack of belief initially appears to give.
He believed that clinging to God and the awareness of the absurdity of
doing so was the only path to becoming self-aware, which is the ultimate ideal
in the Greek heroic tradition, knowledge of oneself.
Each
of these men suffered through their own internal struggles, lending each of
them to the idea of the heroic ideal.
Yet, they all embodied in some form the saintly ideal. Each of them in their deeply contemplative
ways battled back against the powers that be of their day. While no one has been able to firmly rectify
the blending of hero and saint, all four of these men could be held up as contenders
in the fight. All of them lent to those
who are seeking a pathway to meaning a worldview where the convergence of the
two ideals appears possible. Each of
them, in their own way, gave an avenue in which contemplation in and of itself
is possible, as the hero needs while remaining devoted to that which is larger
than oneself as the saint requires.
REFERENCES
Ambrosio, F. Philosophy,
Religion, and the Meaning of Life (The Great Courses Series). Lecture 15.
Ambrosio, F. Philosophy,
Religion, and the Meaning of Life (The Great Courses Series). Lecture 16.
Ambrosio, F. Philosophy,
Religion, and the Meaning of Life (The Great Courses Series). Lecture 17.
Ambrosio, F. Philosophy,
Religion, and the Meaning of Life (The Great Courses Series). Lecture 18.
- Kierkegaard, S. (2009). Fear and Trembling. Charleston, SC: Feather Trail Press. 30.
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