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)

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,

But came the waves and washed it away:

Again I wrote it with a second hand,

But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

"Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain assay,

A mortal thing so to immortalize;

For I myself shall like to this decay,

And eke my name be wiped out likewise."

"Not so," (quod I) "let baser things devise

To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:

My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,

And in the heavens write your glorious name:

Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,

Our love shall live, and later life renew."

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