knowledge of one’s self

The absorbing problem of the renaissance was knowledge of one’s self. Individual self-hood was gaining popular ground now that the church was no longer the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong.

Interestingly the personal pronouns of myself and your self were more often two seperate words and not yet one!

The Greeks in particular Aristotle, posited the assumption that mental character and bodily condition were mutually sympathetic and influential.

To know men in the renaissance was to study both morals and manners according to the following scheme:

1. the likeness of men and animals. This study of physiognomy was the basis upon which the art of mimetic representation was built up in the art of acting.

2. the differences between men and women. Using the same assumptions this topic was important in a general consideration of decorum.

3. The temperaments or complexions of men: the study of the hot and cold and moist and dry types; plus the compound types, the sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric and melancholy types. it also included the study of racial types.

4. The different ages of man: The periods of man’s life is divided into variously 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 stages. Shakespeare obviously accepted seven. The important fact is that certain qualities, certain humours and certain passions are proper for each (see Aristotle art of rhetoric under character) and decorum demands that this propriety be observed.

5.The varying gifts of fortune: These gifts Aristotle gave as birth, wealth, and power.

6. The passions of men are considered not only in themselves but also in their relation to men of different races, complexions, humours, qualities, sexes, ages, fortunes.