The Renaissance:

• The great intellectual and cultural movement of the revival of interest in classical Greek and Roman learning and culture that occurred in Europe in the 14th, 15th, 16th, and early 17th centuries, -- a period which saw the transition from the Middle Ages to modern times.

• Feudalism→ capitalism (rebirth or revival).• the medieval age→the modern world• first started in Italy in the 14th century and gradu

ally spread all over Europe.

Renaissance in Europe

Social Changes

Changing Economy

Urban Society

Politics

Consolidation of Monarchies

Church and Religion

English Reformation

Science and Technology

some important causes

• rediscovery of ancient Roman and Greek culture

• new discoveries in geography and astrology

• religious reformation

• economic expansion

Historical background of Renaissance

• Political and economic reasons ：• 1 The development of capitalism ， im

pacting feudal system and its culture 。• 2 corrupted feudal churches encounter

ed protest and aspired to be reformed and innovated.

• Cultural reason ：• 1 anti-religion culture （ new city cultur

e 、 remote wild nations culture ），• 2 culture of ancient Greek and Roman

Characteristics of Renaissance

Rediscovery of Classical Literature and Art

people from various segments of society studied classical literature and art for pleasure, and their interest in art from the past was soon extended to contemporary works.

Curiosity and Objectivity

an interest in the visible world, rather than the abstract speculations and interest in life after death, interest in the morality of human actions rather than abstract discussions of religious issues.

Individualismthe unique talents and potential of the individual

became significant. The concept of personal fame was much more highly developed.

Humanism: the Keynote of Renaissance

• A fundamental intellectual current in the Renaissance, it originated in the study of classical culture and emphasized the dignity and worth of the individual in contrast to the medieval emphasis on God and contempt for the things of this world.

on Renaissance:

“It was the greatest progressive revolution that mankind has so far experienced, a time which called for giants and produced giants---giants in power of thoughts, passion and character, in universality and learning… There was hardly any man of importance then living who had not traveled extensively, who did not command four or five languages, who did not shine in a number of fields…”

---------Engles

• In literature • Learn from Greek and Roman literature

• In thoughts :• humanism• welfare of human beings , • happiness in this life • lift the restriction in all areas placed by the Roma

n Catholic Church

The basic thought of humanism literature

• 1 fight against the religion ideology of separating oneself from mundane living and seeking for unreal Paradise ， emphasize mundane living ， reform churches ， object to suppressing one’s desires .

• 2 fight against the religion ideology of God ，stand for the power of human being ， assert the value and dignity of people ， object to the power of God by humanism 。

• 3 fight for individual and personality, seek for the liberty of human nature ,oppose to the religious ideology of submissive group 。

• 4 fight for reason ability and revolution of individual thoughts , object to the ignorant and savageness of religion 。

• 5 In politics ， advocate integrate of nation and centralization of authority.

                             

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Poetry: Father of the English sonnet

Thomas Wyatt

(1503-1542) (1517-1547)

The Flowering Time(Elizabethan Period): 2nd half of the 16th century, esp., the last two

decades Poetry Philip Sidney(1554-86)

Defence of Poesie

Certaine Sonets

Astrophel and Stella

Arcadia

Edmund Spencer(1552-1599 )

•

– The Shepheardes Calender 《牧羊人日志》

– The Faerie Queene 《仙后》

Spenserian Stanza

• a 9-line stanza, with the first 8 lines in

iambic pentameter and the last or 9th

line an Alexandrine (iambic hexameter), rhyming abab bcbc c.

Selected reading

• A Gentle Knight was pricking on the plaine,    Y cladd in mightie armes and siluer shielde,    Wherein old dints of deepe wounds did remaine,    The cruell markes of many' a bloudy fielde;    Yet armes till that time did he neuer wield:    His angry steede did chide his foming bitt,    As much disdayning to the curbe to yield:    Full iolly knight he seemd, and faire did sitt,As one for knightly giusts and fierce encounters fitt.

2

• A louely Ladie rode him faire beside,    Vpon a lowly Asse more white then snow,    Yet she much whiter, but the same did hide    Vnder a vele, that wimpled was full low,    And ouer all a blacke stole she did throw,    As one that inly mournd: so was she sad,    And heauie sat vpon her palfrey slow:    Seemed in heart some hidden care she had,And by her in a line a milke white lambe she lad.

Prose

John Lyly (1554-1606)

Euphues (1578) 尤弗依斯 Euphues and His England (1580)

尤弗依斯及其英国Endymion ( a comedy) 恩底弥翁

Thomas Deloney (1543-1600)

Thomas Nashe(1567-1601)    The Unfortunate Traveller, or The Life of Jack Wilton (1594) (now thought to be the first picaresque novel in English) 倒霉的旅行家 , 又名杰克 . 威尔顿传

Drama

The University Wits: 大学才子– A notable group of pioneer English dram

atists writing during the last 15 years of the 16th century, who transformed the native interlude( 一种民间短剧） and chronicle play( 历史剧） by writing plays of quality and diversity.

– John Lyly, Christopher Marlowe, Robert Greene, Thomas Nashe (all graduates of Cambridge), and Thomas Lodge and George Peele (both of Oxford).

• William Shakespeare

Christopher Marlowe (1564–93)

English dramatist and poet, probably the greatest English dramatist before Shakespeare

Tamburlaine the Great (1587) 帖木耳大帝Dr. Faustus (1588) 浮士德博士 The Jew of Malta (1589) 马尔他岛的犹太人

The Epilogue: the 1st quarter of the 17thcentury

Drama Shakespeare’s tragedies, tragi-comedies Ben Johnson’s comedies

Volpone, or The Fox