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Engleska književnost od renesanse do neoklasicizma Simon Ryle [email protected] 16th-17th century English literature Between Protestant Reformation (Luther 95 theses, 1517; Henry VIII's divorce, 1533) and Restoration (1660) Renaissance: 13th - 15th century Florentine/ Italian movement in art and science (rebirth of the classical) Revolution: 1640-1660 Renaissance / Early Modern? Some causes (and effects): Aesthetics 1504 Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa 1508-12 Michaelangelo, Sistine Chapel 1600 William Shakespeare, Hamlet 1604-5 William Shakespeare, King Lear Social / Religious organization 1517 Martin Luther Wittenberg Theses 1525 William Tyndale translated New Testament (destroyed) 1527 Henry seeks divorce—to marry Anne Bolyne 1533 Breach with Rome 1536-9 Dissolution of the monasteries Monarchs 1509-47 Henry 8th 1553-58 Bloody Mary—Protestants burned 1558-1603 Elizabeth 1st 1. Social / economic organization of the State: The end of feudalism J. M. W. Turner, The Chancel and Crossing of Tintern Abbey (1794) Medieval feudal strip plots marked into the landscape They [the oxen and sheep] consume, destroy, and devour whole fields, houses, and cities. For look in what parts of the realm doth grow the finest and therefore the dearest wool. There noblemen and gentlemen, yea, and certain abbots, holy men no doubt, not contenting themselves with the yearly revenues and profits that were wont to grow to their forefathers and predecessors of their lands, nor being content that they live in rest and pleasure nothing profiting, yea, much annoying, the public weal, leave no land for tillage they enclose all into pasture, they throw down houses, they pluck down towns and leave nothing standing, but only the church to be made a sheep house; and, as though you lost no small quantity of ground by forests, chases, lands, and parks, those good holy men turn dwellingplaces and all glebe land into wilderness and desolation… For one shepherd or herdsman is enough to eat up that ground with cattle, to the occupying whereof about husbandry many hands would be requisite. Sir Thomas More, Utopia Base / Superstructure “The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist.” (Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, 1847) 2. The flourishing of the vernacular 1516 Sir Thomas More, Utopia 2b. Gutenberg galaxy – Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg Develop in 1450-60s the process of moveable type used in printing press 3. Globalizations: the growing global power of England Colonization 1577-80 Drake’s circumnavigation of globe in The Golden Hind 1587 Drake raids Cadiz 1588 English beat Spanish Armada The Golden Hind: circumnavigated the globe 1577-80 Sir Francis Drake, 1540-96 3b. Globalization, schism and knowledge Renaissance scepticism – how do we know what we know? Michel de Montaigne, “On Cannibals” 1580 I find that there is nothing barbarous and savage in this nation, by anything that I can gather, excepting, that every one gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country. As, indeed, we have no other level of truth and reason, than the example and idea of the opinions and customs of the place wherein we live: there is always the perfect religion, there the perfect government, there the most exact and accomplished usage of all things. They are savages at the same rate that we say fruit are wild, which nature produces of herself and by her own ordinary progress; whereas in truth, we ought rather to call those wild, whose natures we have changed by our artifice, and diverted from the common order. 4. Humanism and a new aesthetics A new phase in the attempt to represent: a.) realistic subjectivity, and b.) realistic space Giotto, Scenes from the Life of Christ: Lamentation, The Mourning of Christ (between 1304-06) The Annunciation, Church of St. Climent in Ohrid, Macedonia (first quarter of the 14th century) In the middle ages... man was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family, or corporation – only through some general category. In Italy this veil first melted into air; an objective treatment of the state sand all things of this world became possible. The subjective side at the same time asserted itself with corresponding emphasis; man became a spiritual individual, and recognized himself as such. Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, 1867 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? Hamlet (2.2.303-7) Michaelangelo, The Creation of Adam, Sistine Chapel, Vatican, 1508-12 Raphael, The Marriage of the Virgin (1504) Deiric Bouts, The Last Supper, St. Peter's Church, Leuven, 1464-1467 5. Science, knowledge and humanism Leon Battista Alberti Della Pittura (On Painting), 1435 “I will take first from the mathematicians those things with which my subject is concerned.” Ambivalence of Renaissance knowledge (human power/ decentralization): 1543: Copernicus Revolution of the Spheres Johannes Kepler (1571–1630), Galileo Galilei (1564–1642). Hans Holbein the Younger, The Ambassadors (1530) Anamorphosis and momento mori 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? Hamlet (2.2.303-7) Class methodology / learning aims: Close reading What is close reading? Active (not passive) knowledge: a.) Literature is concentrated meaning. b.) Literature involves a relation of content (the presentation of characters and places, literary motifs, etc.), and form/ style c.) Coherent, organized expression of one's findings I am at the barber’s, and copy of Paris-Match is offered to me. On the cover, a young Negro in a French uniform is saluting, with his eyes uplifted, probably fixed on a fold of the tricolour. All this is the meaning of the picture. But whether naively or not, I see very well what it signifies to me : that France is a great Empire, that all her sons, without any colour discrimination, faithfully serve under the flag, and that there is no better answer to the detractors of an alleged colonialism than the zeal shown by this Negro in serving his so-called oppressors. (Roland Barthes, Mythologies, 1957). The sleeping and the dead Are as but pictures; ‘tis the eye of childhood That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed, I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal, For it must seem their guilt. (Macbeth 2.2.54-59) The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 8th Edition (Vol 1). Eds. M.H. Abrams and Stephen Greenblatt. New York: Routledge, 2001.