Diane Krantz
English 4620
Discussion Questions

The Courtier

1. Although Castiglione denies that courtliness can be taught, he does suggest ways it may be learned. What does he suggest?

2. How does Castiglione define sprezzatura (what Hoby translates as "Recklessness")?

3. What paradox does M. Gaspar perceive in the qualities which his noble friends attribute to the perfect courtier?

4. How does Peter Bembo define love?

5. How does Bembo describe coming to know something? (This is what is called "epistemology: the philosophy of knowing."

6. How does Bembo define beauty? How does he argue that beauty is always good? (These arguments signal Castiglione's neo-platonism.)

7. Summarize the argument that the beautiful woman is good. (This argument appears in Shakespeare's Othello between Iago and Desdemona where the latter loses.)

8. The Renaissance idea of the person as the microcosm occurs here in what context?

9. Explain the argument that the beautiful woman is more chaste than the ugly one.

10. How is the old courtier to use reason to guide his passions?

11. Castiglione, in accord with our modern definition of "Platonic love," claims through Bembo that lovers may even exchange kisses without compromising their chastity (or "honesty" as it is sometimes called). How does he defend this position?

12. Castiglione moves from the chaste love of the older courtier to the courtier's love of many which leads him to understand universal love (the Idea of love). He then moves to the contemplation of that from which he believes all love and beauty spring. Who or what is the "most holy love" of which he speaks?

13. How does the Lord Julian respond to Gaspar's argument that women are not capable of the highest kind of love?

14. Find examples of the following on p. 590: apostrophe, balanced sentences (periods), metaphor, personification, alliteration.