I Might Call Him a Thing Divine

When Miranda sees Ferdinand for the first time she can't help but exclaim, "I might call him A thing divine, for nothing natural I ever saw so noble." She stands in awe at seeing another being so similar to herself and yet so wondrous. I used to read this moment as one of those cliché moments from romantic films where two characters see each other and experience love at first sight, until I considered the following: Miranda has never seen another human being besides her father.

As I've contemplated how limited Miranda's human interactions were, I realized had I been in a similar situation I too would find myself in awe to see another creature so alike and yet so different from myself. At first Miranda thinks Ferdinand is a spirit/ fairy similar to Ariel, before seeing him for the flesh and bone man that he is, which is perhaps a great parallel to the way the humanities view humankind; the human spirit is primary while the body is secondary. The human spirit is what makes our bodies vessels worthy of thoughts and philosophy, capable of seeking progress, and deserving of awe and wonder.

The definition of the human spirit is hard to pin down. A simple google search led me all over the place, with no satisfying answer whatsoever. It's a phrase that gets thrown around a lot in modern pop culture, but is rarely defined. For Pico della Mirandola it might be defined as the power of choice humans possess, while for Hamlet it may be the almost God-like elements of the human form, mind and reason.

But most importantly, what does the human spirit mean to me? I am both perplexed and intrigued by this question and I hope to discover the meaning by living a life of wonder and awe.


Works Consulted:

Sell, Lorenz. "The Human Spirit." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 13 Apr. 2013. Web.         13 Sept. 2015. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lorenz-sell/the-human-spirit_b_3016651.html>.