Carpe Diem Overview

Carpe Diem is a term to encourage someone to seize the present day with little to no regards to the future. The concept of Carpe Diem isn’t just about seizing the day instead the concept is rhetorical. It actually persuades us to live a certain way and how we see the world. There are three key elements in which make up the term: time, religion and purpose. In relation to the first element time is all about living for the day, leaving the past behind and not worrying about what the future has in store for you. The second element that makes up the term is religion which most of the writers I will speak about like Horace, Langston Hughes, etc. are either not religious, against it or indifferent. That takes us to our third element purpose, since you are encouraged to live for the day since the future isn’t promising or the only thing that is promised of the future is death then you should pursue pleasure and happiness in everything you do. The purpose of this paper is to provide a rhetorical analysis of the term Carpe Diem and evaluate whether or not Christians should live a life based on that perspective.

I will argue that Carpe Diem is an anti-religious concept by providing you with history, analysis and evaluation with excerpts from various sources ranging from poetic writings, philosophical stories and finish with biblical framework to further support my argument. My goal is not to have you dispose of the concept of Carpe Diem as a whole, rather give you an alternate way perspective on how to think about the term.