The Renaissance

The beginning of the Modern Period

A period of transition
 Major Themes of the Renaissance
• Humanism (both secular and religious)
– Human potential, human progress, expansion of
human knowledge
• Secularism-greater emphasis on non-religious
values and concerns
• Individualism-focus on the unique qualities
and abilities of the individual person
 Background of the Renaissance-
High and Late Middle Ages
• Increased trade and commercial activity during the
High Middle Ages
• Urbanization-growth of cities and towns
• Commercial and business developments (banking)
• Middle class merchant elite developed
• Decline in feudalism
• A decline in the Church’s hold and control on society
and government
• Growth in vernacular literature/growing literacy
• Rise of universities and the expansion of learning
 IMPACT of RENAISSANCE on
ENGLISH LITERATURE
What is renaissance?
Over view of Renaissance
Investigations about Renaissance
England’s place in the world
Beginning of English Renaissance
English literary history
Renaissance artists and authors
Religious Prose , Instructive Prose , Bible
Translation , Drama.
The Coming of the Renaissance
• The Renaissance was a flowering of literary, artistic
and intellectual development that began in Italy in
the fourteenth century.
• Renaissance means “Rebirth”/ “Revival”

What started the Renaissance

• Religious devotion of the Middle Ages gave way to interest in
the human being’s place on this earth
• Universities introduced a new curriculum.
– Humanities: including history, geography, poetry, and languages
• Invention of printing made books more available
• More writers began using the vernacular
Figures of the Renaissance
• Mostly Italians

• Petrarch, Spenser, Shakespeare (poets)

• Leonardo Da Vinci, a painter, sculptor, architect, and

scientist

Renaissance Man
• Da Vinci typifies a Renaissance man—a person of
broad education and interests whose curiosity
knew no bounds.
• A person who encompassed a wide range of interests and
abilities.
 Renaissance:
In 1550,the painter George Vasari wrote of a
rinascita in his native Florence and in Italy in the 15th
century , a ‘rebirth’ .The French 19th century
historian Jules Michelet extended this idea of a
‘renaissance’ from the Italian 15th century , the
Quattrocento ,to a general cultural renewal in
western Europe beginning earlier.
Renaissance is sometimes known as the ‘Revival of
Learning’ .It can also recall as ‘Death of Medeival
Age’ or early beginning of Modern Age.
Def:”The revival of European art and literature under
the influence of classical models in the 14th-16th
century”.
Overview:
It started as a cultural movement in Italy in the late
Medieval period and later spread to the rest of
Europe, marking the beginning of early modern
age . It is known as a bridge between Middle ages
and Modern history . It was a time of great social
and cultural change in Europe spanned from 14th-16th
century spreading across Europe from its birthplace
in Italy . Its influence was felt in literature, art,
music, politics, science, religion and other aspect of
intellectual inquiry.
Change from medieval to renaissance:
The change from medieval to renaissance was at first
more formal than substantial; literature changed less
than art and architecture, although the content of all
three remained Christian. Celebrated icons of the .
High Renaissance are Michaelangelo ’s gigantic David in
Florence, his central design for St Peter’s Basilica in
Rome, and its Sistine Chapel. In Italy the Renaissance
had intellectual origins, drawing on the study of Plato
(c.427-348 BC) and his followers. It also found civic
expression in the Florence of the Medici and the Rome
of Leo X (1513-21). As well as many smaller city-states.
Investigations:
Contemporary with the renaissance were physical
discoveries by Iberians of the West Indies by
Christopher Columbus (1492) and of the western
sea route to India by Vasco da Gama (1498).
Since the Fall of Rome in the 5th century ,historians has
found renaissance in the 8th century under
Charlemagne,and in the 12th century ,but the 15th
century revival of classical models made the Gothic
seem deficient .The period betwwen the Fall of
Rome and the renaissance was first termed as
Middle Age by Neo-Latin writer in1604.
England’s place in the world:
The Spanish and Protuguese discovery of the New
World meant that England was no longer at the end
of Europe but at its leading edge.England gained
power in in the 16th century.The spring signalled by
Mores Utopia (1517) and the verse of Wyatt had
been blighted by the disruption of religion in
1530s,its fruition put back forty years.
Beginning of English Literature:
In 1564,the year of Michaelangelo’s death and Shakespear’s
birth the Italian Renaissance was over,but the English
Renaissance had hardly begun.
By 1579 a renewed cultural confidence was clear in
Sir Philip Sidney’s Defence of Poesy;and the
achievement of Spencer,Marlowe and Shakespeare
followed.
English literary history cherishes the poetry of Sir
Thomas Wyatt (1503-42) and Henry Howard,Earl of
Surrey(1517- 47),and such humanist writings as The
Governor(1531) by Thomas Elyot and The School Master
(1558) of Roger Ascham,who became tutor to Queen
Elizabeth.The achievements of the sixty two years
between Utopia and 1579 would include the
refoundation of humanist schools,the development of a
critical prospectus for english poetry,the establishment
of its meter,and the establishment of the first blank
verse,some fine lyrics and songs,and the first Elizabethan
plays.These preparations eventually led up to that
Renaissance man,Sir Philip Sidney.Yet Sidney’s
Defence of Poesy(1579) found little praise in English
writing to date.The establishment of the Tudor
state under Henry VII and Henry VIII and of a
national church under Elizabeth I necessitated a
consciously national literature,so might english
compete with Latin ,Greek,French ,Spanish and
Protuguese.
It was to late to compete with Latin:as late as
1638,the Puriton John Milton went to Italy to
complete his education.
By 1579,when English was about to ‘burst out into
Du Belly and Ronsard to rival those of
Petrarch.English writers had been unlucky under
Henry VIII,who beheaded More and Surrey.Wyatt a
lover pf Ann Boleyn ,escaped the axe,but his sons
rebelled against Mary Tudor and lost his head.Mary
burnt many Prostestants as heretics;her father
Henry,brother Edward and sister Elizabeth excuted
fewer Catholics,including in 1587 Mary Queen of
Scots,as Traitors.After 1581 ,Catholicism was
considered as treason:Elizabeth also executed four
Puritans.
The Printing Revolution
• Printing Press –
allowed new ideas to
spread more easily.
Spread from China to
Middle East to Europe.
• Gutenberg: invented a
new type of printing
press. Used movable
type.
• Books suddenly within
reach of ordinary
person.
New Perception and Values:
The most significant impact of the Renaissance on
English Literature was seen in the change of
perception of human beings.
The wods of Williams,
“Now he looked inward into his own soul,
seeking the meaning of experience in te-
rms of his own free indiduality”.(William:78)
The great uprise of secular writings embodied in the
poems and sonnets of the Earl of Surrey,Thomas
Wyatt and Sidney,Sir Thomas More’s Utopia,John
Heywoods Interludes and writings of Thomas
Sackville concern with man’s emotion and
experiances.
So strangely,alas,thy works in me prevail,
That in my woes for thee thou art my joy,
And in my joys for thee my only annoy.
-Sidney’s Astrophel & Stellail
Virgil, Plato, Seneca, Terence , Ovid , Petrarch and
other great classical masters taught English masters
to find the greatest joy . Petrarchan Sonnets are
translated by Wyatt and Surrey.
…..to heart’s forest he fleeth,
Leaving his enterprise with pain and cry..
Classical Elements:
Renaissance opened out a great mythical world to
English writers.In 1541 Nicholas Udall staged
comedy called Ralph Roister Doister modeled on
Plautus .Another early comedy was Garmine
Gurton’s Needle whose form was borrowed from
Latin model.
Sonnet was introduced by Wyatt ,and Earl of Surrey
from Italian poetry.Among Wyatts,120 surviving
poems more than 70 were tranlations from the
Latin original.In C.S.Lewis opinion, “Wyatt’s ‘Myne
olde dere enmy my forward maister”.
Renaissance Artists and Authors:
• Leonardo da Vinci (1452) – artist
(Mona Lisa, The Last Supper),
inventor ( helicopter, weapons,
music box, many more), architect,
botanist, musician, anatomy,
optics, engineering.

Helicopter

La Giaconda: The Mona Lisa – Louvre Museu

Art-Michelangelo

The David –
The Pieta Florence, Italy
Italian Genius of Renaissance Writing –
Machiavelli:
• Machiavelli published a book in 1513, The
Prince. Theorized about how a perfect ruler
would govern.
• Stressed that the end justifies the means.
Urged rulers to use whatever means
necessary to achieve their goals.
Genius Writers of the Northern
Renaissance:
• William Shakespeare
– England.
Playwright between
1590-1613. Wrote
about the actual
human condition of
his time.
• Cervates – Spain.
Novelist. Wrote Don
Quixote.
The Courtier by Castiglione
1528
• Written in Italian
• Treatise on the training of young
men in the courtly ideal of a
Renaissance gentleman
• Stressed the value of education
and manners
• Influenced social mores and norms
during the period
Sir Thomas More
• Lord Chancellor of England during
the reign of Henry VIII- highest
political office in England
• Lawyer and scholar
• Wrote Utopia – explored the idea of
a “perfect” society
• Eventually executed by Henry VIII
for refusing to agree to the king and
Parliament’s Act of Supremacy
Protestant Reformation:
• Selling indulgences - The Church taught that most Christians
after death went to purgatory to suffer a time of punishment for
their sins before going to heaven. Indulgences were intended to
remit a part of that time. They were granted previous to death by
the Church for various good works that came to include
monetary offerings. This last became very controversial because
it appeared that the Church was selling the right to avoid all or
part of an individual’s time in purgatory.
Martin Luther
• Associated with the
Protestant Reformation
• Critical of Church
corruption and abuses
• Sought reform
• Wrote the first translation
of the Bible in German
Elizabethan Poetry
• Perfected the sonnet and experimented with other
poetic forms

• Philip Sidney wrote the first Elizabethan sonnet cycle (a

series of sonnets that fit together as a story)—
Astrophel and Stella

• Edmund Spenser wrote a long epic, The Faerie Queen,

in complex nine-line units now called Spenserian
stanzas
The Renaissance brought a new
way of thinking and living to
Europe
A new worldview was emerging
The medieval Christian worldview was giving
way to a more MODERN (secular and
humanistic) view of the world and humanity.