Download Background to the Renaissance

Background
The Renaissance
Renaissance
• “Re-Birth”-a period of
change and growth
– 1300-1650
– Revisited Greek and
Roman art and
literature
– Stirred by the
imagination
– Thirsted for
knowledge
– Explored the scope
of human potential
– Began in Italy
The beginning…
• Crusades were the ironic start?
– Merchants were the primary patrons
» Writers, musicians, philosophers, artists and thinkers
– Petrarch (1304-1374)
» Coined the term “Renaissance”
» Wrote in the vernacular
» First Humanist
*The interest in human individuality and
learning as well as the focus on what is
intrinsic NOT forced religious morality.
“Primary concern with the world of here
and now stimulated experimentation
rather than logic, observation rather
than inherited precepts” (797).
The Individual
• Humanists
• People were the most
important subject of study
• Human centered view of
the universe
• Humans are the
measure of all things
» “Man is the measure of all things”
-Protagoras (c. 485-410 B.C.)
• “Renaissance Person”
» One with skills and interests in
many areas
» Da Vinci’s "Vitruvian Man"
New Spirit of Inquiry
• Developed skills of observation and
questioned known authorities (esp. the
church)
» Copernicus- heliocentric
» Galileo- improved on many budding scientific ideas
» Machiavelli- The Prince
• Pragmatism: the idea that the ends justify
the means
•
*** 1527 The Renaissance ended in Italy
On the flipside…
The Rise of Printing
• 1455 Gutenberg created
the printing press
» First printed Bible
• Encouraged vernacular
reading resulted in people
thinking for themselves
about religion
• Wycliffe and More pushed
these ideas and paved the
way the Reformation
Speaking of Reformation…
• As a result of the printing press Martin
Luther wrote the 95 Theses (complaints)
– Created Protestantism
• People did not need the Church to be
connected to God
• New Influence on art and literature
– The art showed people doing things
– The literature showed people as active and dynamic
So was there anything that the “Rennis” took from
the “Medis”?
• Humours: (from medieval physiology) four liquids in the human body affecting
behavior. Each humour was associated with one of the four elements of nature. In a
balanced personality, no humour predominated. When a humour did dominate, it
caused a particular personality. Here is a chart of the humours, the corresponding
elements and personality characteristics:
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blood...air...hot and moist: sanguine, kind, happy, romantic
phlegm...water...cold and moist: phlegmatic, sedentary, sickly, fearful
yellow bile...fire...hot and dry: choleric, ill-tempered, impatient, stubborn
black bile...earth...cold and dry: melancholy, gluttonous, lazy, contemplative
•
The Renaissance took the doctrine of humours quite seriously--it was their model of
psychology--so knowing that can help us understand the characters in the literature.
Falstaff, for example, has a dominance of blood, while Hamlet seems to have an
excess of black bile. Many of Chaucer’s characters also are described by their
humours.
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What do you think the characters of Taming of the Shrew will have?
This focus on the body and personality connects directly back to humanism.
The influence of Renaissance Humanism
reflected in art and literature…
•
http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/ren-humanism
Explication
• Now that we have discussed an explication of a
Renaissance work of art let us read the works
that express these ideas.
• Who coined the term Renaissance?
• What is a sonnet?
– A fourteen line poem, usually in iambic pentameter,
with a varied rhyme scheme. The two main types of
sonnet are the Petrarchan (or Italian) and the
Shakespearean (or English).
Art Explication
Some devices you will encounter…
•
Conceit. An elaborate, usually intellectually ingenious poetic comparison or
image, such as an analogy or metaphor in which, say a beloved is
compared to a ship, planet, etc. The comparison may be brief or extended.
• Petrarchan Conceit: Eyes like stars or the sun, hair like golden wires, etc. are common examples.
Oxymorons are also common, such as freezing fire, burning ice, etc.
• Enjambment: The running over of a sentence or thought into
the next couplet or line without a pause at the end of the line; a
run-on line.
• Synecdoche: Speaking of a part to represent the whole. “Can
you lend me a hand?”
• Metonymy: A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is
substituted for another with which it is closely associated. “We
read Shakespeare, that is his poems and plays (not him
literally).”
• Synesthesia: The description of one kind of sense impression by
using words that normally describe another. “The music tasted of
champagne.”
Some more…
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Hyperbole: is exaggeration or overstatement
Understatement: used to understate the obvious
Onomatopoeia: is a word that imitates the sound it represents
Mood: is the emotional attitude the author takes towards his subject
Tone: is the attitude a writer takes towards a subject or character
•
Connotation: is an implied meaning of a word
•
Anastrophe: Inversion of the normal syntactic order of words, for example: To
market went she; “Yoda speak” decideyoumust.wav
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Apostrophe: is when an absent person, an abstract concept, or an important
object is directly addressed: With how sad steps, O moon, thou climbest the
skies.
Consonance: is the repetition of consonant sounds, but not vowels
– lady lounges lazily , dark deep dread crept
Assonance: is the repetition of vowel sounds but not consonant sounds
– fleet feet sweep by sleeping geeks
‘nough said, written,
PowerPointed…
• Now is the time to begin
our study of the
Renaissance with a man
whose battle with
unrequited love made him
famous.
Francesco Petrarch
Page 804 in the text
While you may feel like this…
These poems are really not that
bad!
Once you try writing one, you will appreciate their work.
Yup, that means that you will be writing one!