Krantz
English 4620

Castiglione's The Courtier

Castiglione's work was admired by Elizabethan writers because of its humanistic echoes, its definitions of goodness, beauty, and perfect love, and its outline of what the ideal courtier, soldier, and scholar should look like.
While Castiglione's work seems to owe something to Andreas Capellanus' Art of Courtly Love, it is marked throughout by humanist Renaissance principles.
Castiglione provided the nobles of the court of Elizabeth with a guide and conduct book which emphasized the importance to the courtier of displaying sprezzatura, easy grace in all he says or does, underscoring the importance of role-playing and pleasing the prince. The book also declared (admitting the conflict) that the chief function of the courtier is to give good and honest advice to the prince.
Castiglione, in his discussion on beauty and goodness anticipates the Elizabethan valuation of the proper use of human ingenuity (artfullness) as being to enhance nature. Another vital concern for the Elizabethans was the concern with models to transform and, if possible, to surpass. Norton Anthology of English Literature P582, 590.
Castiglione's defense of women is somewhat surprising, but it would give Elizabethans insight into how to praise Elizabeth. 583, 592.
Even Castiglione's praise of the ideal love could serve as a model of "high style" for Renaissance writers, a style that uses apostrophe, balanced sentences (periods), metaphor, personification, alliteration, balance. 590
The greatest writers of the Renaissance in England were influenced by Castiglione. Spenser's Hymns, Shakespeare's sonnets and plays, and Milton's Lycidas. In particular, Hamlet is the courtier. He believed that Beauty and Goodness were one. He has physical strength, courage, and comeliness, he is a scholar given to the classics. He is a master of retort and can twist words however he wants; he is a passionate friend. He dresses his part. He is a musician. His celebration of man the masterpiece finds comparison with Castiglione's "Think now of the shape of a man." In particular, Hamlet has sprezzatura, "Castiglione's hallmark of gentility."

The whole discussion on beauty and truth is Platonic.