Oration on the Dignity of Man Q-STYLE OF PICO DELLO MIRANDOLA
v INTRODUCTION:-
“Style
is the structuring of choices made within the
frame work of a literary
language and of a literary form.”-Gleason
By
choices Gleason means choices of types of sentences, clauses, phrases, words,
metaphors, tunes, images and graph logical markers. So it is quite clear that
through the style we can classify the work of a particular writer. According to
Walter Pater, “to arrive at a great style the first step that a writer
should take is to be careful in his selection of words. secondly, to make a work grand and great an authors should keep the
theme of the work in mind and should
use the style favorable to his style.”
v Pico’s style:-
Pico
belonged to the age and country from where the Renaissance took its birth. And
his work ‘Oration…’ has been considered as the manifesto of the Italian
Renaissance. It has been described as the most elegant “Oration…” which was
published in 1496, with the added elegant phrase, “on the Dignity of
Man.”
In
this oration he is at his best as far as his style is concerned. In this
oration we find that he has poured in his mind manifold writing gifts. He
brought to this project an immense mind, insatiable curiosity, infallible
memory and a confidence in his intellectual capacities that few if any have
ever matched before or since. His large project was the synthesis of all human
knowledge into a single whole.
The
title itself suggests that the style of this book is oration, rather it is a
lecture delivered at Rome by Mirandella, and the theme of his oration is to
celebrate the dignified status of man. The language, sentence and statements he
is using now and then is of oration. Pauses are also found spread around. Paragraphs and sentences are
very long. Phrases like…“so to say,
I ashes.”
Etc
leads us to the conclusion that it is an oration and this style reflects
throughout the book. He ends his oration
in typical style of an orator saying… “let
us now with the prayer that the outcome
may be fortunate as to the sound of war-trumpets, join battle.”
After this, there may be some
question and other observations too.
v Typical Renaissance style:-
The style which has always been
with Renaissance writers was ‘self confidence’, self pride and ‘I’ at the
centre, being formed in the text here and there. In the first paragraph is the
proof itself. He expresses his view on human beings. ‘I’ is dominant. The
sentence below reflects his opinion about the status of man which is the theme
of his project …
“I
feel that, I have come to some
understanding of why man is the most
fortunate of living things…how marvelous
and splendid creature a man is.”
So he throughout presents a
signature, a style of Renaissance writers that has ‘self’ at the centre.
v Confidence in tone:-
It
can be realized that while going through the oration one can realize that there
is crystal confidence in his tone,
arguments and voices. He puts forth the arguments then argues it and then comes
to the conclusion. If he opposes something he gives enough support to his
arguments by opposition because the age
in which he was living was an age of debate and discussion. Because He was
strongly of the opinion that
“the
greatest dignity of Humanity is the
boundless Power of self-transformation.”
His ‘oration’ gives an ardent
support to his belief of self-confidence. Such examples would be found when
Pico goes against the philosopher of his age. Though philosophy at that time
was being considered as an important branch of knowledge, but he very
confidently declares that he isn’t against philosophy but so called
philosophers who by using the mask of philosophy wrongly philosophized the
people. However, he at the same time eulogized philosophy by saying that…
“philosophy
has taught me to rely on my own
conviction rather than on the
judgment of others.”
So one can safely declare that
it is philosophy and its interest in it which gave him such a confidence. His
style of writing is no doubt clearly apparent in his oration.
v Prescriptive style:-
It is well known to the reader
that Pico is also known as a renaissance spiritualist. He was of the opinion
that it is the spiritual faculty of man which makes the man the angel. He says
the individual human beings are the microcosm. That is, the individual human
being can express the whole of creation and can express the whole of divine. If
one wants to find God then one can look into
one’s own soul for the individual perfectly express the whole of
divinity. For this reason he argues that human beings can become any aspect of
the universe. So being a spiritualist by nature he gives tips to the human
beings in order to enrich the people spiritually.
v Use of symbols:-
According to Aristotle,
“only
that writer may be deemed as a great one
who has got a mastery over images and symbols.” Actually
speaking, however profound the idea may be, it has no value in the realm or art
and literature unless it is woven into the fabric of art and beauty. The
Mirandola project is also rich in beauty because of its daring use of symbols.
This
use of chameleon as a symbol of man is a genial one. Here though he uses symbol
of chameleon, but he becomes propitious
in his argument that man is by nature mutual and capable of transforming itself. His argument is
symbolized in the figure of speech where he says,
“who
then will not look with awe upon this
our chameleon or who at least will look greater with admiration on any other being?”
Another interesting use of
symbol is found in his argument about the true place of god and man. He says in
this whole universe god is at the centre and in the universe on earth man is at
the centre, there he presents a symbol of ladder to give vitality to his
arguments. He says…
“in
the bosom of the father who reigns above the ladder, we shall find perfection and peace…”
He only means to say that
between man and god there is a ladder, (spiritual faculty). God is, who reigns
above the ladder; so in order to reach god we are supposed to make use of the
ladder. Many other symbols are also used in the text, through which Pico gives
us direction, a broad area of reference, rather than like an item in an
allegorical.
v Demerits:-
There
is saying in Sanskrit that, “Sampurna Keval Hari” Every human
being has some demerits. It is universally acknowledged that ‘oration’ by Pico
is the most read of the Renaissance and no work more forcefully, eloquently
affect the reader but oration. However, this masterpiece of his is also not
free from its juvenility. Because the reader can notice that in the beginning
of the oration, author is very confident clear presenting self opinion but as
the project goes forward, he seems somewhat dizzy. He quotes more and more
example from other philosophers like Plato, Aristotle and other. In the field
of religion, he frequently takes help of his argument already put forth by
Parsi Zoroturust and pagan culture ending portion of the oration is the proof
of his dazzled status.
v Conclusion:-
In
spite of some demerits his oration stands out like a beacon among other
renaissance works. This has the entire characteristic, favorable to its
style.
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