Pico della Mirandola’s seminal Renaissance discourse, Oration of the Dignity of Man, championed the sovereign individual: “Whatever seeds each man cultivates will grow to maturity and bear in him their own fruit”. At the center of the creative ladder, human beings can grasp the ‘fruits’ of God, but only once equipped with the ‘seeds’ of reason. The ascent of man requires deliberate cultivation, establishing ordering structures of religious and civic codes to abate the savage, anarchic alternative: the unfettered reign of nature. Continue reading
Tag Archives: desire
Cressida: A Sexual Delicacy or Nauseating Refuse?
Whats for dinner? Bread? Sex? Betrayel?
In “Troilus and Cressida,” Shakespeare uses food imagery everywhere as a thinly veiled euphemism for sexual and carnal desire. Appealing to the crowd, Shakespeare knows that he’s among commoners who spend time drinking at taverns, wasting money away on whoring and gambling. Some of the male characters’ “hungry desires” for women probably reflect the viewers’ cravings for members of the female population. This male-female dynamic is especially inherent in the supposed “romance” between Troilus and Cressida.