Understanding what makes us human and individual has been a question man has been trying to answer for centuries. A fundamental part of trying to answer this has been figuring out what makes us different from each other, and what exactly it means to be individual. Through art and literature, we have expressed ourselves in many ways, but how much of this due to ourselves and how much is influenced by our surroundings? During the Renaissance, a key development was the movement of Renaissance humanism, and those who followed it tried to gain a better understanding of man and how we fit into this world. Also, during the Renaissance, ideas of self-fashioning started to spring up in the upper classes of society and the self was expressed in many ways, such as through the before mentioned literature and portraits. But just how closely were Renaissance humanism and self-fashioning linked, and can self-fashioning be used to better comprehend what this humanism was about? This essay will argue that while self-fashioning is useful in terms of understanding parts of humanism, it is ultimately not enough to fully comprehend it and more is needed to fully understand the term. To do this, the essay will firstly address the main scholars in the field and the main scholarly debates. It will then explore a number of key points, such as what exactly were Renaissance humanism and self-fashioning, as well as the problems with the term self-fashioning. It will discuss how modern ideas of self-fashioning are often projected onto the Renaissance, therefore causing certain problems for using the term “self-fashioning” to understand Renaissance humanism. Also, the influence of Renaissance humanism on different social classes and nationalities will be addressed as will one of the most important humanist authors, Francesco Petrarch. Finally, the links humanism has with self-fashioning will be discussed and whether or not you can have one without the other.
Before addressing the key questions, it is necessary to look briefly at some of the key scholars and debates in the field of Renaissance humanism and self-fashioning. Jacob Burckhardt wrote one of the first key texts on the Renaissance and his is the classical viewpoint of Renaissance individuality, in terms of people expressing themselves and becoming individuals, in contrast to the commonly held views about the Middle Ages, where most people were defined as part of a community or in accordance to religion. Stephen Greenblatt, however, advocated the revisionist viewpoint of Renaissance individuals being influenced by outside forces, that individualism was still a product of society and that people couldn’t have just started becoming more individual at a certain point in history, they had to react to their surroundings. Their main points as well as criticisms of both of them are outlined by Jeffries Martin and Hannah Chapelle Woyciekowski, both of whose texts will be addressed further on.
To start with, it is useful to explore what exactly Renaissance humanism was and why it was so important. Originating in the 13th and 14th centuries in Europe, at the core of this movement was the emphasis on using ancient Greek and Roman literature and art for further education and a more complete understanding of man and of the world surrounding him. Although these ideas had been discussed in the Middle Ages as well, humanist thinkers explored them and gained access to far more material throughout the progression of the Renaissance. Humanists wanted to educate man using rhetoric, self-expression, history, philosophy and poetry. Key humanist thinkers included Boccaccio, Bracciolini and Petrarch, who were all collectors of ancient texts. Petrarch especially has been dubbed the “Father of Humanism” as he was a keen advocate of using rhetoric in terms of education. Humanism was so important largely because it influenced education in Western Europe and, at least in theory, moved away from the idea of man being seen in relation to God and religion and instead started viewing him as separate from the rest of the universe. If this really happened in everyday life is debatable, considering the religious wars and Puritan ideas that would be so influential in the late 16th and 17th centuries. All of the known humanist writers would probably have been religious as well, and many used humanist ideas and principles to work for the Church, but the secular idea was certainly there, if not very popular or accepted.
Next, it is important to look at the term self-fashioning and exactly what it means. The term was first used by Greenblatt, and it describes the construction of identity influenced by certain social standards. Self-fashioning was important in terms of the development of your identity and self-expression, both of which were important to humanism, although, as we shall see later on, there are problems with the extent to which self-fashioning could develop certain identities. The trend of self-fashioning could certainly be ascribed to many Renaissance writers and thinkers, who used art and literature to express themselves to either create or further develop their identities. This could be done in different ways, such as writing personal letters in your own personal style and publishing them, an example of which can be seen in Bartolomeo Fonzio’s prefatory letter to his friend Amerigo Forsini, where he states that he wishes to show his friends what kind of man he was.
However, here there appears the first problem in using self-fashioning to understand Renaissance humanism. How honest exactly is self-fashioning? It was, even in the Renaissance itself, described by terms that also represent duplicity and fakeness, such as “arte” which meant skill but implied deceit. Can anyone, through writing or painting truly express themselves and shape their own identity without exaggerating or creating an identity that they wish to be true rather than what it really is? And if so, does this not present a problem with using self-fashioning as a link to humanism? If you are creating a self through appearances, you are learning self-expression but are you learning more about the role of man in the universe? One of the key texts of the period, Castiglione’s ‘The Courtier’, talks about what the ideal courtier of the time should be like. He must be skilled in a wide variety of subjects, and, should he be lacking in something, he must at least appear to have those skills, such maintaining a show of courage even when he does not feel it. This shows the tendency for humanists to both advocate honesty yet practice duplicity, which is also shown in Miriam Eliav-Feldon’s scholarship. While this does present a certain link between humanism and self-fashioning, still it seems that self-fashioning is not enough to fully express humanist ideas, if the aim is to use the study of antiquity to further develop humanity.
There are also problems with the term self-fashioning itself. A modern idea of self-fashioning is often applied to the Renaissance. While today we might think of the idea of creating your own identity and shaping your life as something positive, we cannot project these ideas onto the people who lived during the Renaissance, as we do not know if they would have viewed it in the same way as we do. Chapelle Wojciehowski for example, criticizes Burckhardt’s approach to individuality, and argues that Renaissance men and women would not have considered their destinies as something of their choosing, unlike many of us would today. Martin also argues that Renaissance individuality was less about developing a certain way of viewing the world on your own but rather about how your opinions would affect your view of the world and relations with everyone around you. He also criticizes Greenblatt’s approach, in that the role of outside forces and society still seems like a very modern way to look self-fashioning. This presents another problem for the main question: if we apply modern terms to self-fashioning, how can we fully understand it and link it to Renaissance humanism? Once again, self-fashioning can be a useful concept because our interpretations of humanism are modern as well, and so we can maybe link these two together and understand them in modern terms, but ultimately, to properly understand Renaissance humanism, we would have to know exactly how people back then viewed self-fashioning, whether it meant the same things to them as it would have to us, and there is no concrete evidence that would enable us to know this.
It cannot be said either, that the ideas of Renaissance humanism and self-fashioning had a similar influence everywhere and on everyone. Most of the key texts that show an individual developing a certain writing style are written by those who would have had access to education and been at least moderately wealthy. This is shown in Angelo Poliziano’s letter collection, where he addresses the first one to Piero de Medici, who came from one of the most influential families in Renaissance Italy and showed that the people the writer of the letter came into contact with were certainly upper class. Similarly, Petrarch’s famous letters to Cicero show that he was someone who would have had access to the kind of education that enabled him to read scholars such as Cicero and develop the ability to write. Most of these primary sources also come from places such as Renaissance Italy, or the south of France, showing that Renaissance humanism and self-fashioning developed far more rapidly in certain parts of Europe than in others (although Northern Europe and the writings of Erasmus were without a doubt important to the movements as well.) People who were less educated or poorer would have perhaps had access to some humanist or self-fashioning ideas through plays, which were a common pastime back then, but ultimately humanism and self-fashioning were very much restricted to the upper and middle classes of those times. This once again shows that the idea of self-fashioning, as we understand it today, is not enough to fully understand humanism, because, while both ideas were linked to the upper class, the modern idea of self-fashioning seems to apply the idea of creating your own identity to everyone everywhere, which was not the case with Renaissance humanism. This is another problem with using modern terms to understand something from history, but it does make it harder to use one term to fully understand the other.
Further addressing Petrarch, this is where possible alternative evidence to the point argued in the essay might be found. Petrarch advocated for self-expression and thus self-fashioning. He was one of the most influential humanist writers, so perhaps this could mean that self-fashioning can be used to fully understand Renaissance humanism? However, it doesn’t seem likely that Petrarch would have advocated only self-fashioning in terms of obtaining a humanist education. While he certainly believed in rhetoric and developing your own sense of style, he also keenly advocates reading as something else that is crucial to development. And while reading can be considered a form of self-expression, it is more crucial to learning facts and critical thinking. These skills can certainly help with self-fashioning, however, self-fashioning seems to be more about creating a certain sense of style and identity, rather than using somebody else’s ideas. It is true that somebody else can stimulate your own sense of creativity, but this seems to be against Petrarch’s ideas of your style not being similar to anybody else’s. Then again, it is important to bear in mind that Petrarch also advocated imitation, which does not seem to be a part of self-fashioning and thus can be linked to other concepts related to Renaissance humanist education. So, while Petrarch certainly believed in self-fashioning, he advocated other components of the humanist education, such as imitation, which can help with seeing other viewpoints rather than simply focusing on yourself and your ideas. This, once again, shows that while self-fashioning was a key part of the Renaissance humanism movement, there was more it than just simple self-fashioning.
To further attempt to link Renaissance humanism and self-fashioning, there are several factors to look at. Are the two movements identical? This has been shown not to be the case, due to humanism seeking mainly to educate and of which self-fashioning was only a part of. Also, can there be humanism without self-fashioning and vice versa? The former, for various reasons, seems to be more plausible than the latter. Humanism without self-fashioning, while certainly missing a component, is still viable through other methods of education, simply by reading ancient manuscripts for example, rather than writing letters and expressing yourself. Or by looking at paintings and judging for yourself what they symbolized, rather than through the artists’ interpretation. Self-fashioning without humanism, however, is harder to comprehend. Would it even be possible to self-promote or create an identity without humanist ideas and texts that were available at the time? Possibly, once again, through paintings, where you could express yourself, but that idea only came about due to the rediscovery of ancient texts, statues and the ideas of humanism, not the other way around. It also seems far less likely that self-expression would have been such a trend if it had not been for humanism that encouraged writing skills and developing individual styles, rather than simply copying something perhaps, which may have been done otherwise. So, humanism without self-fashioning is more viable than self-fashioning without humanism, which indicates as well that self-fashioning, while a key component in humanism, is still too little to fully understand it.
Ultimately, there is shown to be a lot of evidence that while self-fashioning is certainly a crucial factor in understanding Renaissance humanism, it is too little. Humanist thinkers such as Petrarch would have advocated different methods of education than just self-fashioning. If you can have humanism without self-fashioning, that means there is more to it and more needs to be uncovered to fully understand it. There are also problems with the modern interpretations of the term self-fashioning and these cannot be used to fully describe humanism. Self-fashioning, though it is certainly useful for understanding parts of Renaissance humanism, is only a part of what the wider movement encompassed. This raises interesting further questions: how else can you understand Renaissance humanism other than by using the term self-fashioning? What else did the humanist education entail? There is far more to explore about these two very interesting concepts, but, nevertheless, more is needed to understand the complex movement that was Renaissance humanism, although self-fashioning remains a very important part of it.