The Renaissance summaries
The Renaissance summaries
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The Renaissance summaries
THE RENAISSANCE
The term "renaissance" ("rebirth" in French) was introduced by Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), an Italian art historian who wrote of the rebirth of art in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The concept of the Renaissance was then applied more broadly to describe a dramatic rebirth of civilization in Western Europe. This view of the Renaissance involves two erroneous concepts. First, there is the idea that the Middle Ages had few cultural accomplishments to their credit. Second, there is the idea that, sometime around 1350, a sudden rebirth of literature, art, and scholarship began in Italy.
These views overlook the accomplishments of medieval European civilization, especially those of the High Middle Ages from about l000 to 1300. During this period, Romanesque and Gothic architecture emerged, the first universities were established, and scholastic philosophy developed.
What occurred in Italy beginning in thefourteenth century was not, therefore, a sudden rebirth but rather a continuation of what had been underway for several centuries, although there were some significant shifts in emphases. Above all, the Italian Renaissance involved an intensification of interest in the classical civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome, especially in classical literature, thought, art, and architecture. In addition, the Italian Renaissance brought an intensification of the secular spirit in Western European civilization. This meant an increasing concern with the things of this world rather than with eternity and a new emphasis on the individual and individual accomplishment.
How distinctive was the Renaissance as a period in European history? The Italian Renaissance, many historians agree, was not a complete break with the outlook and institutions of the Middle Ages; rather, it was an artistic and intellectual transformation of an urban elite, characterized by rationalism, secularism, individualism, and humanism. A wealthy merchant and banking class enriched by trade and commerce in the cities of Genoa, Milan, and Florence patronized the arts and education. Ruling dynastic families such as the Medicis in Florence and the Sforzas in Milan with their condottieri, or mercenary soldiers, defeated their rivals and promoted the signs of their wealth. Building extensive libraries and commissioning artistic masterpieces from Michelangelo and Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571), among others these rulers competed with the growing material power of the Catholic church in influence and prestige.
Italy's geographical location as the crossroads of the Mediterranean trade,with abundant seaports where travelers mixed and profits mounted, helps to explain the cultural expansion. But Italy was also the home of the ancient Romans, and relics of Greco-Roman antiquities abounded to inspire imitation. Humanists revered the ancient classical authors like Plato and Socrates and developed educational programs based on their study. According to Castiglione (The Courtier, 1528), the court gentleman must be widely educated to paint, sing,wrestle, ride, converse in many languages, speak eloquently, and write skillfully.
Political Theory
In the realm of political theory, Machiavelli (The Prince 1513), revolutionized the science with his pragmatic prescriptions for obtaining and maintaining power. Since men are naturally selfish and corrupt, Machiavelli wrote, the prince must be as cunning as a fox and as ferocious as a lion in his dealings with them. He must be able to manipulate men's emotions and feelings, understanding that it is better to be feared than loved by his people. Christian teachings were irrelevant in the prince's pursuit of power. Political ends justified whatever means, however brutal, the prince employed.
Realism in Art
An artistic breakthrough to realism is found in the works of Michelangelo, da Vinci, Raphael, and Botticelli that illustrate the ways in which Christian and Greco-Roman themes converge. Michelangelo's David conveys the Greek ideal of beauty with its classical proportions, anatomical perfection, and glorification of the human body. The biblical David is portrayed as an independent moral agent who embodies reason and free will, and exhibits virtu, the striving for personal excellence. The Medicis placed the statue before the city hall in Florence as a symbolic defender of the republic. To the humanists, republican government was a superior form because it invited the participation of citizens in the dialogue of governing on which human progress depended.
Literary Criticism
The humanists studied the Latin classics and literary culture of the ancient world with deep interest. A famous humanist was Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457), who used historical criticism to discredit an eighth-century document giving the pope Italy and the entire Western empire. Analyzing the language in the document, he proved that it could not have been written in the fourth century and was, in fact, forged in the eighth century.
NORTHERN RENAISSANCE
Growing prosperity and the printing press carried Renaissance culture to northern and Western Europe, to England and the Low Countries (now Belgium and Holland). The Christian humanists Erasmus (In Prise of Folly, 1509) and Thomas More (Utopia, 1516) were advocates for the deeply religious character that distinguished the northern Renaissance fro
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The Renaissance summaries
The Renaissance Period (the 14th and mid-17th centuries)
A. Introduction:
The significance and influence of the Renaissance
As a historical period between the 14th and mid-17th centuries, the Renaissance, stimulated by the rediscovery of ancient Roman and Greek classics, geographical and astrological discoveries and the religious reformation, characterizes itself a movement of thinking. In the period, humanists intended to put an end to feudalist ideas of the Middle ages, to introduce new ideas of the rising bourgeoisie, and to recover the purity of the Christian Church.
The Renaissance, which means rebirth or revival, is actually a movement stimulated by a series of historical events, such as the discovery of ancient Roman and Greek culture, the new discoveries in geography and astrology, the religious reformation and the economic expansion. The Renaissance, therefore, in essence, is a historical period in which the European humanist thinkers and scholars made attempts to get rid of those old feudalist ideas in medieval Europe, to introduce new ideas that expressed the interests of the rising bourgeoisie, and to recover the purity of the early church from the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church.
B. Typical characteristic of literary works in the Renaissance England
- New poetical forms introduced, e.g. blank verse and sonnet, enriched the native stock of English literature, and conventional ones were adopted to fit new subjects as shown in the use of the pastoral convention in Spenser’s “The Shepheardes Calender”. Both of the two tendencies well served the goals of humanistic goals: skillful handling of conventions, force of language, and the dominating plan to get all the devices combined to frame the emotional theme and throw it into high relief.
- Based itself on the models of Roman and Greek classics, and the precedents from Italy and Spain, the English drama evolved from the interludes and morality plays and developed into a sophiscated art form. With the most well-known playwrights, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, who wrote plays with such universal qualities of greatness, this extraordinary drama left a monument of the Renaissance in the history of English literature.
- The universal tend of humanism in emphasizing man’s dignity and his worldly happiness was reflected in the works produced in the period. Wyatt and Surrey, imitating Petrarch sang songs of love, Marlowe depicted the Renaissance man and expressed his desire for knowledge and power. Donne wrote about the physical love of human beings. And, Shakespeare most powerfully drew a picture of the age in its colourful variety. Thus, the concern for man’s living in this world presented itself in almost any of the literary texts in Renaissance England.
The English Renaissance was perhaps England’s Golden Age, especially in literature. Among the literary giants were Shakespeare, Spenser, Jonson, Sidney, Marlowe, Bacon and Donne.
Humanism & Reformation
Sonnet, blank verse, iambic pentameter, terza rima and sestina
Spenser----- The Shepherdes Calender
Marlow----- The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
The Elizabethan drama is the real mainstream of the English Renaissance. The famous dramatists in the Renaissance England are Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson.
Francis Bacon, the first important English essayist.
Edmund Spenser ( known as “the poets’ poet.”)----- the Faerie Queene
The Shepheardes Calender
Spenser’s masterpiece is The Faerie Queene, a great poem of its age. He intended to write it as a “historical poem” to present the example of a perfect gentleman. This epic poem, according to Spenser’s own explanation, would contain 12 books, with 12 knights as the examples of 12 virtues, undertaking each an adventure, on the 12 successive days of the annual festival of Queen Gloriana (i.e. Queen Elizabeth I). But of the 12 books, only 6 books and 2 cantoes of the seventh book were completed upon the death of the poet. According to the original scheme of this poem, King Arther, symbolizing the perfection of all moral virtues, has a vision of Gloriana, the Queen of the land of the faeries. Determined to seek her, he is brought into the adventures of the several knights and helps them to a successful issue.
In the poem, the humanist tradition of the Renaissance may be traced in the adventurous spirit characteristic of the age, in the joy of the present life, in the love of nature and natural beauty, and in the eulogy of the power and capabilities of man. Written with great artistic skill, the metrical pattern and the musical qualities that have exerted great influence upon a number of English poets in later centuries, including the great romantic poets of the 19th century Byron, Shelley and Keats.
The five main qualities of Spenser’s poetry are 1) a perfect melody; 2) a rare sense of beauty; 3) a splendid imagination; 4) a lofty moral purity and seriousness; and 5) a dedicated idealism. In addition to the above, Spenser uses strange forms of speech and obsolete words in order to increase the rustic effect. It is Spenser’s idealism, his love of beauty, and his exquisite melody that make him known as “the poets’ poet.”
The excerpt is taken from Canto I, Book I, in which Redcross Knight sets out on his adventures. Here the knight, symbolizing the Anglican Church, is the protector of the Virgin Una who stands for the truth or the true religion. The poem reflects the idea of reformation.
Some tips to better understand and appreciate the poem:
- to make clear the rhyming scheme of the poem
( note: the poem is written in the stanza invented by the poet himself, the Spenserian stanza, i.e., a stanza of nine lines, with the eight lines in iambic pentameter and last line in iambic hexameter, rhyming ababbcbcbcc.)
- to find out the obsolete words and replace them with the modern ones if necessary
- to divide each stanza into sentences and analyze the sentences (pay special attention to the inverted lines if any)
the main qualities of Spenser’s poetry:
a. a perfect melody; b. a rare sense of beauty; c. a splendid imagination; d. a lofty moral purity and seriousness; and e. a dedicated idealism
Selected Reading:
An Except for The Faerie Queene
The except is taken from Canto I, Book I, in which Redcrosse Knight sets out on his adventures. Here the Knight, symbolizing the Anglican Church, is the protector of the Virgin Una who stands for the truth or the true religion.
Christopher Marlowe
The works by C. Marlowe: (plays) Tamburlaine; Dr. Faustus; The Jew of Malta
(non-dramatic poetry) Hero and leander, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Marlowe’s greatest achievement lies in that he perfected the blank verse and made it the principal medium of English drama.
Marlowe’s second achievement is his creation of the Renaissance hero for English drama. Such a hero is always individualistic and full of ambition, facing bravely the chanlenge from both gods and men. He embodies Marlowe’s humanistic ideal of human dignity and capacity. With endless aspiration for power, knowledge, and glory, the hero interprets the true Renaissance spirit. Both Tamburlaine and Faustus are typical in possessing such a spirit. They seek power and knowledge respectively
Though Marlowe is masterful in handling blank verse and creating dramatic effects, he is not so strong in dramatic construction and compared with Shakespeare, his women characters are rather pale. But his brilliant achievement as a whole raised him to an eminence as the pioneer of English drama
Selected Readings:
1. An Excerpt from Dr. Faustus
Marlowe’s masterpiece, and the story of the play
“Dr. Faustus” is a tragedy based on a German legend of a magician.
The hero of the play, Dr. Faustus, a brilliant scholar is bored of the study of medieval theology and turns to magic. By incantations at night, he calls Mephistophilis, the Devil’s servant. Faustus signs a bond with his own blood to sell his sold to the Devil so that he can get the services of Mephistophilis who will give him everything he desires. After the contract with the Devil, Fgaustus gives a full display of his magic and sees the Pope, Alexander the Great and even the beautiful Helen of Greece. Yet he has to bear a mental conflict at the same time. in the final scene, the anguish of the hero’s mind is poignantly expressed.
His tragedy is symbolic of a humanist in the Renaissance.
2. The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
This short poem is considered to be one of the most beautiful lyrics in English literature. It derives from the pastoral tradition, in which the shepherd enjoys an ideal country life, cherishing a pastoral and pure affection for his love. Strong emotion is conveyed through the beauty of nature where lovers are not disturbed by worldly concern.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Introduction: William Shakespeare is one of the most remarkable playwrights and poets the world had ever known. With his 38 plays, 154 sonnets and 2 long poems, he has established his giant position in world literature. He has also been given the highest praises by various scholars and critics the world over. In the past four hundred years or so, books and essays on Shakespeare and his works have kept coming out in large quantities.
William Shakespeare, as a humanist, kept the principle that a powerful and just soverign should exist as a necessity when he wrote his history plays. He was against feudal tyranny, disunity and internal struggle for power which caused civil wars. So, to uphold social order, a good king was needed for the good of the people.
He satirized and criticized religious persecution, racial discrimination, the insatiable lust for money and the bourgeois egoism, while eulogizing youth, the power of human life and worldly happiness. If his comedies can be said to be a song of the earthly love of human beings, his tragedies must be one of their dignity, nobility and goodness. In tragedies, there can also be found the profound analysis of social evils and their causes. Even in his tragic-comedies written he became old, there can found his unbending will for a brave new world.
In writing, he kept to the principle “to hold, as it were, the mirror up to nature” that is, to reflect human nature and social reality. This must be his dominating humanist view on the ‘end’ of dramatic creation. With the emphasis on the combination of beauty, kindness and truth, the view can be regarded as a systematic theory of the dramatist, showing a great humanist centering round man and his concerns.
In a word, with his humanistic ideas, William Shakespeare remains the greatest playwright in the Renaissance England, and in the whole history of English literature as well.
2 narrative poems: Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece
His dramatic career is divided into four periods:
The first period: (apprenticeship)
History plays: Henry VI, Richard III, Titus Andronicus;
Four comedies: The Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, and Lover’s Labour’s Lost
The second period: (highly individualized)
Five histories: Richard II, King John, Henry IV, and Henry V.
Six comedies: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, and The Merry Wives of Windsor;
Two Tragedies: Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar
The third period: (greatest tragedies)
Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, (the four great tragedies) Antony and Cleopatra, Troilus and Cressida
Two comedies: All’s Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure
The Last period: The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest
Shakespeare’s history plays are mainly written under the principle that national unity under a mighty and just sovereign is a necessity.
In his romantic comedies, Shakespeare takes an optimistic attitude toward love and youth, and the romantic elements are brought into full play. The most important play among the comedies is The Merchant of Venice, in which Shakespeare has created tension, ambiguity, a self-conscious and self-delighting artifice that is at once intellectually exciting and emotionally engaging.
The traditional theme of the play is to praise the friendship between Antonio and Bassanio, to idealize Portia as a heroine of great beauty, wit and loyalty, and to expose the insatiable greed and brutality of the Jew. But after centuries’ abusing of the Jews, especially the holocaust committed by the Nazi Germany during the second World War, it is very difficult to see Shylock as a conventional evil figure.
The successful romantic tragedy is Romeo and Juliet, which eulogizes the faithfulness of love and the spirit of pursuing happiness. The play, though a tragedy, is permeated with optimistic spirit.
Shakespeare, as a humanist of the time, was shocked by the feudal tyranny and disunity and internal struggle for power at the court which led to civil wars.
Lastly, to understand Shakespeare, it is necessary to study the subtlest of his instrument---the language.
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