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The Renaissance
Background Information
► Roman
Empire: Jesus? Or Jupiter?
► Began to distance themselves from old gods, old
ways, old texts
► This practice spread to all of Rome’s “children”
countries, to all of Europe
► Throughout the Middle Ages, many studied
Latin (to study Church texts) but all the old
stories and theories had been forgotten
► Aristotle’s Poetics, Sophocles’s Antigone
5 Useful Lenses Through Which To View
Renaissance Art
► Classical—Art
sought to associate itself with texts
from classical antiquity, i.e. Sophocles
► Political—Art reflects the shifting political arena
of Renaissance Europe, particularly the looming
threat of invasion from the Ottoman Turks
► Humanism—Art reflects increasing belief in
human intelligence and achievements
► Imitation—Art did not endeavor to create
something new, but to imitate predecessors
► Reformation—Art reflects the growing religious
movement known as the Reformation
Classical
Greece and Rome invented, philosophized, and wrote
about all sorts of cool things we’d forgotten
► During the Renaissance, scholars searched for ancient
texts, dusted them off, and started rediscovering ideas
that had been lost for centuries
► Rome and Greece were “in”
► Therefore, allusions to Roman/Greek mythology abound
in Renaissance literature
► Allusion—an indirect reference to something else
► Like an inside joke, allusions indicate that you are
knowledgeable about something, that you’re “in the
know,” an educated and cultured individual
► “Venus smiles not in a house of tears” —Shakespeare
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Political
In the Middle Ages, most believed in the Great Chain
of Being
► The hierarchy of God > King > Noble > Peasant was changing
► A new group, the “merchant class,” was on the rise
► The emergence of a new class of rich (and therefore
powerful) people who weren’t nobles or churchmen
challenged traditional power structures
► Like all art, Renaissance art reflects the world around it
► Several famous examples of satire emerge in this period
such as Erasmus’s The Praise of Folly
► Satire—Humorous works that point out human
flaws/shortcomings/errors through exaggeration
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Humanism
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The idea of a being a Renaissance Man, someone who
excelled in multiple activities, stems from humanist
ideals
“What does it mean to be an ideal human?”
“How do I lead a good life?”
Humanists sought to answer these questions by
looking to Greek and Roman texts
Before humanism, people believed the Bible was the sole
source of answers to the above questions
Humanists believed the Bible was a source of answers,
but believed other important answers lay in human
history (i.e. Greek texts)
Sought to create harmony between the Bible and
classical texts
Imitation
► Generally
speaking, artistic communities today
put an emphasis on originality, avoiding clichés
► In Renaissance Literature, the goal was not
usually to create something completely new, but
to imitate the classics (in a new way)
► Sometimes, this involved updating classic ideas
to suit the Christian ideals of the time period
► Of Shakespeare’s 36 plays, only The Tempest is
not an imitation of an older tale or historical
event
► Macbeth comes from Raphael Holinshed’s
Chronicles of England, Scotland, and
Ireland
Reformation
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The Catholic Church was the most powerful organization
in the world
By 1517, much corruption had developed
There was still good: Unlike many of his contemporaries,
Bishop Lorenzo Giustiniani disliked materialism and lived
a life of poverty
But many people were churchmen for the wrong
reasons: to sell indulgences: “Hey! Slip me twenty
bucks and God will forgive your sins!”
Martin Luther made a list of things he disagreed with,
like indulgences, and called them his Ninety-Five Theses
Because there was no such thing as the internet, he did
what anyone would do to spread information quickly:
nailed them to a church door
Reformation
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Luther and other Protestants wanted to take power out
of the hands of the Church officials, encouraging people
to interpret the Bible themselves
This was quickly becoming possible because a new
technology, the printing press, was allowing more
people to own Bibles in their own language
Helped legitimize vernacular languages (like English
and Italian)
Protestants realized, however, that understanding the
Bible in its original context was important to truly
understanding it
Encouraged many to learn Greek, helping to fuel the
growing fascination with Greece
Renaissance Overview
► Renaissance—1485-1600ish
► Period
of intellectual, scientific, and artistic growth
► English Renaissance—1558-1660
► Period of English history in which literature and
music flourished
► Means “rebirth” in French
► Return to Greek ideals and culture
► Renewed emphasis on studying human beings and
human accomplishments
Renaissance Timeline (1300-1500)
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Increased trade with Asia/Middle East creates a
surplus of money in the Mediterranean Region
Extra money=need to decorate your oceanfront villa with
pretty things
Artistic movement begins in the Florence, Tuscany
(now part of Italy)
1414—A series of religious scandals culminate in the
Western Schism: three men simultaneously claimed to
be Pope
1453—Fall or Constantinople—Greeks flee to Europe
1492—One of the many people looking for more trade
routes and more money, Columbus, “discovers” North
America
Renaissance Timeline (1500-1550)
► 1503—Leonardo da Vinci paints Mona Lisa
► 1513—Machiavelli writes The Prince
► 1516—Thomas More publishes Utopia
► 1517—Protestant Reformation begins:
Martin Luther nails to a church door 95 ways he
believes the Church needs to be fixed
► 1521—Magellan circumnavigates the globe
► 1533—Henry VIII Declares himself head of
the Church of England
► 1534-1541—Michelangelo paints the Sistine
Chapel
► 1543—Copernicus publishes theory that planets
orbit the sun
1550-1600
► 1557—Tottel’s
Miscellany helps to
popularize sonnets in England
► 1558—Elizabeth I becomes Queen and so
begins “Elizabethan Era,” or “English
Renaissance”
► 1564—William Shakespeare born
► 1588—Christopher Marlowe writes Dr. Faustus
► 1590—Edmund Spenser writes The Faerie Queen
► 1599—Globe Theatre built in London
1600-1660
► 1606—Shakespeare
has published Macbeth, King
Lear, and his sonnets
► 1609—Galileo is first to study the stars with a
telescope
► 1611—King James Bible published, changing
the English language forever
► 1658—John Milton begins Paradise Lost
► 1660—Puritans close all the theatres in London
Early Modern English
► Great
Vowel Shift (1450-1750)
► “Fate” “Feet”
► “Boot” “Boat”
► The Scottish accent sounds similar to English
before the vowel shift
► Before Printing Press, words were generally
spelled according to how they sounded
► Printing Press, The King James Bible,
Shakespeare’s plays, the Book of Common Prayer
all help to stabilize the spelling of words