RENAISSANCE

- 1300-1600 (right after the Middle Ages).

- First began in Italy.
- It means rebirth.
- Humanism: worth of individual.
- Secularism: worldly not religious.
- The term “La Rinascita” or rebirth was coined by Giorgio Vasari.
- Humanism a system of thought and action concerned with human interests and values, was
the dominant of Renaissance.
- Humanism increased the sense of the dignity of man.
- Two models of women
 Eve
 Virgin Marry (represents the domestic side of women)
- Man: not sinner but intelligent
- The term “humanist” derived from ancient Rome and specifically Cicero’s cultural ideal of
Humanitas.

HUMANISM

- Celebrated the individual

- Stimulated the study of Greek and Roman literature and culture
- Was supported by wealthy patrons
- Humanism philosophy spread outside Florence:
 Through travel and trade think of the part city-states (Genova, Venice, Pisa)
 Printed word after 1438
 By 1500, 40000 titles printed and between 8-10 million copies were made in
printing press
 The impact of movable-type printing press = research and literary
 Monarchs support humanities

Francesco Petrarch

- Considered the father of humanism

- Assembled Greek and Roman writings
- Wrote: sonnets to Laura, love poems in the Vernacular
- Founded philology
- He was interested in individual offers, not in political affairs
- Humanist education is needed to get rid of the barbar effect
- Focused on intellectual and spiritual matters not distracting political problems
- His conzaniere – a sequence of poems including 317 sonnets addressed to his beloved, Laura-
established and perfected Petrarchan (or Italian) sonnet, which remains one of the two
principal sonnet forms as well as the one most widely used. The other one is English (or
Shakespearean) sonnet.
- In conzaniere Petrarch seeks to absolute, divine, and eternal. He experiences anxiety because
he cannot cast off his worldly concerns such as fame, glory, and therefore cannot achieve
spiritual peace.
- The surface meaning of the work indicates a story of unfulfilled love and the different
emotions that lover goes through.
 - Petrarch searches for truth while at the same time experiencing conflict between what he is
and what he should be.
- Conflict between divinity, reason, and humanity.
- He is also important for the idea of developing Renaissance.

Petrarch’s Influence on Humanism

- He was concerned with individual matters, not general problems.

- He was known for his isolationism.
- The idea of new education system is the idea of Petrarch

Why did the Renaissance begin in Italy?

- One major reason is linked to geography. Italy were the centers for trade and commerce.
- Secondly, with the collapse of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, the intellectuals of
Constantinople settled here as refugees, and brought many of their latest works with them.
- Prior to this, scholars in Italy had been examining the works of the ancients but they were of
poor quality and often incomplete.
- The third reason was political. Due to various political intrigues, the Italy Roman Empire had
essentially lost powers in northern Italy.
 Milan: one of the richest. It controls trade through the Alps.
 Venice: in the Adriatic. it attracts trade from all over the world.
 Florence: controlled by De Medici Family, great patrons of the arts.
 Genoa: had access to Trade Routes.
All of these cities:
 Had access to trade routes connecting Europe with the Middle Eastern
markets.
 Served as trading centers
 Initially independent city-states governed as republics.
 Jacob Burckhardt refined Michelet’s ideas in “The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy”
(1860) a work which acquired classic status and which for many remains the most significant
book ever written on subject.
 Cosimo de Medici established the “Platonic Academy of Florence” and appointed the
Neoplatonist Marilio Ficino its first ahead.
 Ficino and Pico Della Mirandola translated into Latin of Plato’s and other Neoplatonist
works.
 Oration on the Dignity of Man by Pico Della Mirandola has been called “the manifesto of
Renaissance humanism”.
 Lorenzo Vallo decades before Ficino announced a “golden age”.

Effects of the Renaissance

- Advances in science and technology led to the European exploration of the world.
- Humanism encouraged the growth of the democracy.
- Secularism led to the Protestant Reformation.

Political Ideals of the Renaissance

Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince

- Ruler should be quick and decisive in decision making.

- Be good when possible, and evil when necessary.
 - The goal of the prince must be power.
- Cynical view of human nature.
- Fear is a better motivator than affection.
- Politics as the art of deception.

Renaissance Art

- Produced new ideas that reflected in the arts, philosophy, and literature.
- There are support of Patrons.
- Education became secular.
- Perspective introduced by the artists Brunelleschi and Alberti.
- Study of human form, depiction of nudes
- Secularism (new subject matter)
- Artistic problems of perspective and composition were solved by mathematical side of
painting
- The proliferation of portraiture

Renaissance Artists

- Fresco’s painting done on wet plaster became popular because it gave depth to the paintings
- Sculpture emphasized realism and the human form

Michelangelo

He is one of the most inspired men who ever lived.

 “David” by Michelangelo
 His masterpiece
 1504
 Enormous size
 It was the first time that a large-scale nude statue was made in the Renaissance since
antiquity.
 “Sistine Chapel”

Leonardo da Vinci

Jan van Acyk

Northern Renaissance

- The movable type printing-press and the production and sale of books
- Gutenberg Bible helped circulate ideas

Northern Renaissance Writers

1) Desiderius Erasmus
- Dutch humanist
- Wrote the “Praise of Folly” (1511)
- Critical of corrupt church practice
- Accelerate the Protestant Reformation
- Used humour to show the immoral and ignorant behaviour of people
2) Sir Thomas More
- English humanist
- Wrote the “Utopia” (1516) a book about the perfect society
 - Depicts world with perfect system
- Leading humanist scholar
- Believed men and women live in harmony
- Justice system is for end crime not for executing criminals

In 1455, Johannes Gutenberg printed the first book produced by using movable type: The Bible.

- The three volume Latin text

- Represents the greatest single innovation in the history of communication technology
- A style of printing almost unaltered till the 20th century

NEOPLATONISM

- Plato approached the idea of creation from mystical and philosophical pov.
- He called the universe “the cosmos”.
- He called the ultimate good or the ideal one as ENS, so in the beginning of everything there is
ENS.
- The world of ENS beyond the senses.
- The nature of ENS is, pure, virtue and love.
- The creative power of ENS is performed by Anima Mundi.
- The soul is the creative and rational gift in man.
- The soul is immortal since it is derived from ENS.
- As the soul moves away from ENS, the influence of ENS become less and gradually decreases.
Neoplatonists call this separation “emanation”.
- With the separation, the soul enters the world of elements, which is called “material world”.
- In the material world, the soul is surrounded by 4 elements:
 Earth: dry, cold
 Water: wet, cold
 Air: wet, hot
 Fire: dry, hot
- There is chaos in the material world. All these four elements conflict with each other. So, this
affects the man.
- These four elements also create a kind of harmony through conflict, which is called
“Discordia Concors” -harmonious discord-
- When the soul falls into the material world, if man can avoid temptation (seven deadly sins)
by embracing the purity of his soul and using his reason, he can go back to ENS again.
- Plato in his Timaeus says that there are three sub-worlds in the material world:
 World of man
 World of animals
 World of plants
- Plato also underlines in this book that man has both earthly (body) and heavenly (ratio)
qualities.
- Virtue is man’s ability to keep his bodily desires under the control of his soul. Only that way
man can liberate himself.
- Plato argues that with the study of philosophy man can see the difference between three
kinds of love and avoid the wrong one:
 Divine love: heavenly love, the beauty of the soul
 Procreative love: earthly (human) love, earthly beauty
 Lust: bestial (animal) love, hellish deformity
 - In relation to these three kinds of love, there are three kinds of life corresponding each
other:
 Contemplative life: to heaven
 Active life: earth
 Vegetative life: to hell
- The man is made up of two parts: the soul and the carnal body.
- Because of the four elements man either becomes a victim of his body or by avoiding it
reaches God.
- Ficino explains that man is superior to animals with his divine aspects; his reason (ratio) and
power to think.
- The core idea of Neoplatonic dialectic is by virtue and reason, man can go up to
contemplative life.
- Ficino translated to Latin the works of Plato. So, due to his translates, towards the end of 15 th
century, the influence of Neoplatonism became immense.
- It was Ficino who first used the term “platonic love”
- Platonic love is the love through which you celebrate God’s creation of men and through this
beauty you reach God.
- Plato in Symposion believed that physical beauty is the reflection of the inward. So does
Neoplatonists and Renaissance thinkers.
- The Neoplatonic lover therefore admires and adores the physical beauty in his mistress
thinking that it reflects her soul and divine self.
- To enjoy and understand this spiritual love, the lover has to avoid the earthly and physical
desires.

THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE

TIMELINE

- Humanism
- Henry VIII breaks with the church
- The reign of Elizabeth I
- The defeat of Spanish Armada
- Decline of the Renaissance
1) Humanism: Intellectual movement that greatly influenced Renaissance thinkers, writers, and
artists. Such as Sir Thomas More and Desiderius Erasmus. Both men wrote in Latin, loved life,
laughter, and classical learning.
- Press set up in England by William Caxton by 1500.
- Printed press invented by Johannes Gutenberg by 1436.
- Books widely available throughout western Europe.
- Printing press play part in spreading humanist ideas.
2) Henry VIII Breaks with the Church:
- Renaissance man
- Poet, musician, athlete
- Had six wives
- Created Royal Navy – ended foreign invasions, increased England’s power.
- He closes monasteries and Protestantism begins in England. With this, England becomes
Anglican country, no more having ties with the Roman Catholic Church in Vatican.
- He reformed the ecclesiastical (religious) education and set a progressive secular education.
3) The Reign of Elizabeth I:
- The virgin queen
- Daughter of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife who had been executed
- England entered its glorious Renaissance
- Re-established Church of England, rejects Pope authority
- Never marries
- Defeats the Spanish Armada
- Court become a centre of literary thought – the age of sonnets, lyrics, and the courtier poets
- The golden age of English Renaissance

NOTE: The reign of James I is called the Jacobean period (Jacobus is the Latin form of James).

THE OXFORD REFORMERS or the PONEERS OF ENGLISH RENAISSANCE

 Thomas Linacre
 William Grocyn
 William Lily
 John Colet
- They are called Oxford Reformers because at the beginning of the humanism (1490-1578)
when the religious quarrels began in England, humanism was accomplished only by a few
elect spirits.
- They were full of hope.
- They set out for Italy.
- They gained knowledge about Greek literature.
- They learned Latin grammar, scientific medicine, and diet.
- The cultivation of Greek and Latin was started by their united constant endeavour in a new
sequence. For this reason, they regarded as the “Oxford Reformers”

THE SONNET TRADITION

- The sonnet was introduced into English literature in the Elizabethan era.
- Poetry witnessed the rise during Renaissance.
- Poetry had an immense progress in terms of form and theme.
- The most predominant poetic type was lyrical poetry, at first represented in a form of
sonnet.
- Sonnet is a fourteen-line poem.
- Written in iambic pentameter (bir kısa bir uzun, beşli hece ölçüsü).
- It is originated in Italy.
- The term is Italian which means “little song”.
- The aim of a sonnet is to praise the beloved.
- Lentini was the inventor. Petrarch revived and made the form famous.
- Stanza: kıta
- Petrarchan (Italian) sonnet is divided into two parts (stanzas); octave and sestet.
- The octave: 8-line stanza (the first part of the Petrarchan sonnet where the argument is
introduced).
- The sestet: 6-line stanza (the second part of the Petrarchan sonnet where the argument is
falling till reaching the final resolution).
- Between octave and sestet, a volta (a pause between them) is used to mark a shift in the
ongoing argument (generally in the eighth or ninth line).
 - The sonnet was introduced with the influence of Petrarch, through Sir Thomas Wyatt and
Henry Howard’s (Earl of Surrey) adoption of the form and translations from Petrarch.
- Sir Thomas Wyatt was the first to introduce the Italian sonnets by translating Petrarchan
sonnets from Italian to English.
- Henry Howard introduced a new poetic form blank verse in his translation of Virgil’s epic
Aeneid in 1540, having metrical patterns but lacking rhymes.
- Blank verses indicate unrhymed poetic lines written in iambic pentameter.
- Traditionally sonnet consists of 14 lines.

Petrarchan Sonnet (Italian) Shakespearean Sonnet (English)

abba abba abab

octave
abba abba cdcd Three quatrains
cdecde cdcdcd (sestet) efef

Octave (first 8 lines) gg (couplet)

argument Three Quatrains

observation argument

question Couplet

Sestet (last 6 lines) conclusion

counter argument refutation

clarification NOTE: there is no volta in Shakespearean

answer to octave

Volta: a pause between octave and sestet

The Spenserian Sonnet

abab

bcbc Three quadraints

cdcd

ee (couplet)

- Invented by Edmund Spenser

- Also called “linked sonnet”

The Miltonic Sonnet

- By John Milton
- Octave + sestet (no volta)
- Including political, religious, and occasional themes
  Petrarch started the sonnet tradition in Italy with his Canzoniere which consisted of 366
poems written for Laura.
 The sonnet tradition began in England in the mid-16 th century by Sir Thomas Wyatt and
Henry Howard (Earl of Surrey) with their adaptations and translations of Petrarchan sonnet.
 However, Sir Philip Sydney is the poet who really started the sonnet writing with his
Astrophile and Stella.

The Cult of Cupid

- In the sonnet tradition love is very important and personified.

- Love occurs with pain rather than success and happiness.
- There is a clash between heart and mind.
- Always a conflict included in the sonnets in terms of spiritual vs. worldly.
 In Greek:
 Presented as unescapable thing.
 Personifies as tiny naughty creature Eros.
 Eros likes to torture the poets. They suffer because of their loves.
 In Latin:
 Cupid is a merciless tyrant which comes from the erotic nature of pagan
poetry.
 Cupid sits in the eyes or on the forehead of a lady throwing arrows form
there to lovers, thus causing them to fall in love with her.
- Two types of lovers in the sonnet tradition:
 Reasonable: pure love, no temptation, no carnal desire
 Sensual: feels temptation, carnal desire
- Petrarchan Conceit: two opposing things are given like freezing a fire. This kind of conceit
forms a debate between divine and mental state of man.
- Love is always described as a warfare: beloved as a castle and the lover as a soldier.
- Frustration is the keyword to the sonnet tradition.