THE RENAISSANCE

RENAISSANCE HUMANISM
 RENAISSANCE – ”The Early Modern Period”:

Period in European history marking the waning of the

Middle Ages and the rise of the ”modern” world.

Classical Antiquity –> 476 A.D.

Middle Ages: 1000 –>
Renaissance:
Italy: 14th century –>
England: 15th century –>
(Poplawski: 1485–1660)
 “Renaissance” ≈ ”renascentia” ≈
rebirth

A significant period of political,

religious and cultural (incl.
artistic/literary) change and renewal
across Europe
 In England, the Renaissance is
associated with the arrival of the
Tudors on the throne.
 Henry VII king in 1485, which
marked an end to a long period of
civil wars for the throne (the Wars
of the Roses 1455–85).

(Poplawski 105–108)
The Wars of the Roses (1455-1485)

• Long-lasting conflict
between aristocratic camps:
The House of Lancaster vs.
The House of York.
• Henry Tudor finally defeated
Richard III at the Battle of
Bosworth Field (1485).
• The Tudors would rule for
118 years, and could build
up a new nobility.
 Tudor monarchs
Reign:

Henry VII (1485–1509)

Henry VIII (1509–47)
Edward VI (1547–53)
Mary I (1553–58)
Elizabeth I (1558–1603)
—> Stuart rule
 Henry VIII
1537 portrait Jonathan Rhys Meyers in «The Tudors»
 Elizabeth I
Portrait by George Gower Cate Blanchett in 2007 film
The Renaissance: a period of much
diversity and controversy.
 Middle Ages
God ruler over human fortunes
Authority of the Church/
Church as presider over Truth
Ideal world VS fallen world
Epic/heroic forms of literature –> Chivalric Romance

Court culture/ courtliness

VS
Scepticism/realism/Parody of ruling ideology (Chaucer)
 RENAISSANCE

Growing trust in:

– human capacity to explore and understand human
nature and humanity’s place in the universe
– possibility of controlling and improving one’s
fortunes through learning – aided by the invention of
printing. Interest in «natural philosophy»

Medieval outlook still lingering

Literary examples?
 Renaissance self-fashioning

During the Middle Ages, an

Aristotelian fixed hierarchy had
served as a model for the world >

.
 Great Chain of Being

God
Angels
*Humans
Animals
Inanimate world
(plants, metals, rock…)
The “order of nature” and ideology
(Poplawski 119–24)

Absolutism
Patriarchy
Ranks
 In the Renaissance, however, this
rigid idea was succeeded by a more
dynamic, (neo-Platonic) one
New confidence in human capability
to improve one’s situation

Belief in self-improvement
 Belief in humanity’s capacity for
greatness

Uomo Universale:
a man who excels in the major fields
of learning and action – also called
Renaissance Man
However, humans can never fully
transcend their lowly
characteristics

Ideal world
vs
Real/fallen world
 Shakespeare (Hamlet):

”What a piece of work is a man, how

noble in reason, how infinite in
faculties, in form and moving, how
express and admirable in action, how
like an angel in apprehension, how like
a god: the beauty of the world; the
paragon of animals; and yet to me,
what is this quintessence of dust.”
 Sir Thomas Browne:

”But man is a noble animal,

splendid in ashes, and pompous in
the grave, solemnizing nativities
[celebrating births] and deaths
with equal lustre, not omitting
ceremonies of bravery in the
infamy of his nature.”
 Contradictory human nature

Need for balance, self-control and moderation

TEMPERANCE
≈
Humanism: an idea about
universal order, despite all the complexity and
diversity that the world contains
 Vices:

Hubris

Rashness
 Ideal of harmonious self-fashioning

Neo-Platonic concept of a ladder from

sensual love towards higher forms of
love – governed by reason

Man’s Free Will, nurtured by Love &

Reason –>
Temperance/Harmony/Unity
 Ideal:

The inner self in accord with a

rational order in nature
The great thinker behind the
Humanist tradition:

Marcus Tullius CICERO

(106-43 B.C.)
 Watchword of the Humanists: sapientia

”The knowledge of things human and divine

which is concerned also with the bonds of union
between gods and men and the relations of man
to man” (Cicero, De Officiis, Book I, 152–161)

”Relations” and ”bonds of union”: vision of the

inner in harmony with the outer.

(See Poplawski 135–38)

 Ideal:
A king must be self-controlled,
rational and honourable
Rhetorical form – Eloquentia: the outward mark
of an inward spiritual grace.

The good orator or writer must be a good man,

implying an enlightened concern for the civilized
state and the well-being of the body politic.
HOWEVER, the Renaissance did not
only involve the cultivating of a
sacred, natural balance.
 Social mobility; traders and
merchants on the rise

Scepticism: questioning of traditional

privileges; questioning of handed-
down assumptions and “truths”

Scientific investigation
 Golden age of England’s navigators
and explorers, like Francis Drake and
Walter Raleigh

Foundations for future empire

 Power struggle

Royal power caused growing conflict

with groups demanding political
influence and opportunities.

—> Glorious Revolution 1688–89

 REFORMATION
(Poplawski 124–29)
Lutheran pessimism countering humanist optimism and
the Catholic belief that it was possible to save oneself by
good works (Thomas Aquinas).

Luther insisted that salvation depended entirely on the

grace of God (human depravity)
Dramatic genres:

Tragedy
and
Comedy
 Until the close of the seventeenth
century most tragedies were written
in verse.

Protagonists of high rank, often a

king or a prince (not ordinary
people) struggling against gods and
antagonistic forces, whose fate
affected the fortunes of the state.
 Tragic flaw – hamartia ("error of judgement")
 
In Greek tragedies a common form of hamartia
was hubris, through which a protagonist
disregards a divine warning or violates an
important moral law.
 
The hero is often a great figure whose defiance
of ordained order plunges himself and others
into tragic downfall.
  
However, we also see in these figures humanity's
great potential.

Their downfall may also be their triumph,

suggesting the price to be paid for their vastness
of spirit.
 COMEDY
Also an ancient Greek genre.

Classical comedy often ends with the marriage of two

lovers.
 
In comedy, two lovers often find their path to happiness
blocked by a more powerful figure.

When this obstacle is removed, or after the opponent’s

change of attitude, the lovers and the audience can
celebrate a happy ending.

.
 The blocking figure is often dominated by a
particular vice.

Thus the audience receives the satisfaction of

seeing the world return to a sounder moral
principle (often the assumed natural order of
things), and of seeing the obstructing figure
ridiculed, leaving us with a sense that society is
secure.

Rational, good sense wins in the end

How has Renaissance literature
influenced later literary periods
(Restoration; Romanticism;
Modernism)?