What characterizes the Renaissance sensibility of the self? Two things, perhaps:
First: not the playing of roles, but the consciousness of playing roles, the consciousness that creates an ironic distance between role and role-player. Richard II is entirely expressed in his assigned role; Henry V seems conscious that he is taking up a role. (Hardly surprising for the son of a usurper.)
Second: not the playing of roles, but the tendency to stand to the side to evaluate one’s own performance. Hamlet thus becomes his own dramatic critic: “What an ass I am” after a vengeful rant; thought causes things to “lose the name of action,” he concludes after a series of thoughts.
Is this new? It’s hard to think so, when we think of Augustine; surely he’s a critic of his own performances. But the Augustine of the Renaissance (in contrast to the Augustine of the Middle Ages) was the Augustine of the Confessions.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
