Humanism

Ascetic ideals replaced by ideals of

the enjoyment of life
Greek view of life
Influenced literature
Attitude life was gay and full of
meaning
Englishmen learnt Greek writer
life to be enjoyed
R People money enjoyment of
life all worldly pleasures

 Conception of man Crown of

creation
Individualism and worldliness
H- Writers glorified the individual
believed man was the measure of all
Scorn of earthly conditions
Soaring passion infinitudes of
power, beauty, thought and love
Education
concept well-rounded or
renaissance man proficient
intellectual and physical

 Thomas More perfect society

Spencer highest, holiest
manhood
Bacon clarion call to knowledge
Sidney, Gilbert and Grenville
heroic deed and speech
Marlow Tamburlaine
Shakespeare, Spencer, Bacon
and Marlow writings
glorification of man and human
life

Essay Bacon 1561-1626

Remarkable and attractive
Dr. Johnson --- a loose sally of
mind, an irregular, indigested
piece, not a regular and orderly
composition
Hudson --- a composition on any
topic, the chief negative features
of which are comparative brevity
and comparative want of
exhaustiveness:

 True essentially personal

Gateway to enter mind and
personality of writer
Montaigne --- I am the subject
of my essays because I myself
am the only person whom I
know well
Bacon informative knowledge
and worldly wisdom
Addison thin in thought and
diluted

 Traced to Greece and Rome

did not flourish
Montaigne first man write
essays
Bacon first English essay
Father of English essays
Bacon --- aphoristic style
terse, witty and maxim short
phrase says true or wise
Maxims -- judicious,
condensed and weighty

 Bacon --- himself as moralist,

statesman and man of the world
Concerned this life and world
than life and world beyond
death
emphasised utility and worldly
values
exhibited Practical Bias
Specimens of wisdom arises
out of universal insight into
affairs of world
Fruits of his observation of life

 Fullest and finest expression of

practical wisdom --- he acquired
from study, experience and
meditation
Subject three broad classes --moral and religious, political and
domestic