Lecture5. The Renaissance

1. The cultural and intellectual movement of the Renaissance.

2. The Renaissance in England

a) The early period. Reformation. Humanists. Thomas More and his Utopia.

b) Elizabethan Age.

3. English drama before Shakespeare.

a) Traditions of medieval popular drama. Mystery and morality plays.

b) Development of professional theatre. Classical influence. Dramatic genres and modes in English theatre.

The Renaissance started in the late 14^th cent. in Italy, spread to the rest of Europe in the 15^th cent. and afterwards, culminated in the High Renaissance in the 16^thc.

The intellectual and cultural movement of the Renaissance involved a rebirth of letters and arts stimulated by the recovery and study of texts from classical antiquity, and the development of new aesthetic norms based on classical models. The period marked the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern world. It is seen as a watershed in European civilization, both because of its extent and its emphasis on the human (whether independent or in association with the divine).

The emphasis of the Renaissance is the “discovery of man and the world”. Humanism. Humanists emphasized the dignity and the potential of the individual and the worth of life in this world, as opposed to the otherworldly values of the Middle Ages.

The development of secular literature and art.

Some new features that the Renaissance brought to literature: tendency towards literary realism; poetic celebration of Man; interest in the national culture: plots and images from the national folklore.

II. The Renaissance in England – the 16^th century; coincides with the reign of the Tudor sovereigns: from the accession of Henry VII in 1485 till the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603.

After the dynastic strife between the noble houses of York and Lancaster, which had raged for over thirty years, Henry VII was able to impose a strong central authority and order upon the nation.

Literacy had increased during the fifteenth century, it is estimated that some 30 per cent of the people could read in England in the early fifteenth century and some 60 per cent by 1530.

The Reformation.

Ideologically, the Reformation meant a return to pure Christianity – cleansing the church of all the corruption and idolatry that had accumulated over the centuries. Martin Luther revolted against the ancient church in the name of individual conscience enlightened by a personal reading of the Scriptures.

In England, however, the Reformation did not begin with an ideological controversy. Henry’s motives for the break were dynastic and financial, not religious.

1) Humanismwas a fundamental intellectual current in the Renaissance. In England its major exponents were Sir Thomas More, Erasmus of Rotterdam, John Colet (founder of St. Paul’s School); Roger Ascham (tutor to Princess Elizabeth), Sir Thomas Elyot. Their primary concern was education.

The early period of the Renaissance in England was also the period of the Reformation. Hence, from the outset, English humanism was vitally concerned with Christianity. Many of the greatest writers of the age, including Spenser and Milton combined an earnest Protestantism with their classical learning and were also, in this special English sense, Christian humanists.

Sir Thomas More (ca 1477- 1535) Educated at Oxford, a successful lawyer, MP, Lord Chancellor in 1529-32. Arrested, indicted on high treason, and beheaded. Canonized by the Church of Rome in 1935.

His famous work is Utopia, written in Latin.

‘Utopia’, a word coined by More, is derived from Greek and means ‘no place’. The book is comprised of the author’s conversations with a fictitious traveller Hythloday (from Greek ‘Hythlodaeus’ – nonsense-peddler’). The first part of the book – severe criticism of More’s contemporary England and advice to the English king, based on Christ’s teachings.

The second part – the description of an ideal state on the island of Utopia, where Hythloday has allegedly spent five years. In Utopia there is not any private property, no money; people despise personal riches. Utopians live in families the head of the family is a philarch. The society is organized on the principles of social equality. Combination of primitive communism and archaic features: slavery; patriarchal (parental) authority of the philarchs, etc.)

No privacy, everything about the Utopians is public.

The name ‘Utopia’ passed into general use and many subsequent fictions, fantasies and blueprints for the future, many works of science fiction use the Utopian form.

The next English Utopia appeared one hundred years later – The New Atlantis by Francis Bacon (1561-1626). His Utopian community depends for its progress on collective scientific research and development of technology.

The Fairie Queene, Spenser’s greatest poem.

By the ‘Faerie Queene’ the poet signifies Glory in the abstract and Elizabeth I in particular. Twelve of her knights, examples of twelve different virtues, undertake an adventure each, on the twelve successive days of the Queen’s annual festival. Prince Arthur, the perfection of all the other virtues, has a vision of the Faerie Queene, and determining to seek her out, is brought into adventures of the several other knights. This is the general scheme given by the author in the introductory letter. The poem itself starts with the adventures of the knights.

The poem can be enjoyed as a fascinating story with multiple meanings. It works on several levels at once:

- in some respects, it is a courtesy book, intended to ‘fashion a gentleman or a noble person’ by exhibiting the qualities such a person should have. Spenser completed six books, each of which exhibits one of such virtues. The poem fulfils the common Elizabethan expectation that poetry should teach by delighting.

- it is also a romantic epic, full of adventures and marvels, with intricate plots and amazing characters.

- The poem is a moral allegory. We are invited to interpret the characters and adventures in terms of particular virtues and vices.

- The poem incorporates historical allegory with persistent allusions to many personages and events in Spenser’s own England.

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