Intro to Renaissance Literature

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 5

Intro to the Renaissance

Why are the Ninja Turtles on the previous slide?

Lesson Goals

At the end of this Lessonup:

- You will be able to explain the basic history of the Renaissance

- You will be able to relate the Middle Ages to the Renaissance

- You will be aware of the programme for the coming period.

Middle Ages recap

- Romans --> Anglo-Saxons --> Normans

- Theocentric society

- Three social classes (Nobility, Clergy, Commoners)

- Religious and Secular Literature

- High Germanic, Old Norse, Latin, French

What year is commonly used to describe the start of the global Renaissance?

1. 1453
2. 1521
3. 1408
4. 1066

Rebirth

- Fall of Constantinople to Mehmet II ( Ottoman Empire)

- (Re-)Establishment of contact with Islamic world

- Re-discovery of Classical Texts

- (Re-)Introduction of Science and Philosophy into religious way of thinking

Renaissance in England

What event kick-started the English Renaissance?

Three fields

- Society

- Literature

- Politics

Society

- Feudal system/ three estates on the way out.

- Traders on the way in

Society became more anthropocentric

Science vs. Religion

Literature

- Influence of Classical writings: ad fontes

- Shakespeare: comedies, tragedies, historical plays

- Italy  as birth place of many literary forms: sonnet

- Dante Alighieri: Divine Comedy

Which of the following is not a feature of the Renaissance?

1. Theocentrism
2. Romeo & Juliet
3. Wars of the Roses
4. Ad fontes

Describe the concept of Ad Fontes based on the passage shown here.

Who is the king in the picture?

1. William the Conqueror
2. James I
3. George III
4. Henry VIII

Politics

- Lots of confusion, conflict

Fascinating monarchs:

Henry VIII: 6 wives, Anglican Church

Elizabeth I (The Virgin Queen): Defeated the Spanish

- English Civil War (1642–1651): Parliament versus King

- England a republic until 1659

Middle Ages

Renaissance

Beowulf

Macbeth

William the Conqueror

Oliver Cromwell

Printing Press

Latin as the written language of choice

Sonnets

All you need is love (or beauty)(or youth)(or marriage)

Edmund Spenser

To all those happy blessings which ye have,

With plenteous hand by heaven upon you thrown:

This one disparagement they to you gave,

That ye your love lent to so meane a one.

Yee whose high worths surpassing paragon,

Could not on earth have found one fit for mate,

Ne but in heaven matchable to none,

Why did ye stoup unto so lowly state.

But ye thereby much greater glory gate,

Then had ye sorted with a princes pere:

For now your light doth more it selfe dilate,

And in my darknesse greater doth appeare.

Yet since your light hath once enlumind me,

With my reflex yours shall encreased be.

To all those happy blessings which ye have,

With plenteous hand by heaven upon you thrown:

This one disparagement they to you gave,

That ye your love lent to so meane a one.

Yee whose high worths surpassing paragon,

Could not on earth have found one fit for mate,

Ne but in heaven matchable to none,

Why did ye stoup unto so lowly state.

But ye thereby much greater glory gate,

Then had ye sorted with a princes pere:

For now your light doth more it selfe dilate,

And in my darknesse greater doth appeare.

Yet since your light hath once enlumind me,

With my reflex yours shall encreased be.

•  14 lines
• 3 quatrains + couplet
• iambic pentameter
• Volta
•  Conceit
• Complex language