RENAISSANCE LITERATURE

Voyages to New Worlds

Since the times of the Crusades in the 11th and 12th centuries, Europe had been trading with the East.

There was an increased demand for exotic Eastern spices, cloth, and wood, which created new wealth for traders and merchants

Voyages to New Worlds• The Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453

temporarily blocked the overland route to the East, so new trade routes were needed. People started to explore.

• 1492—Italian explorer Christopher Columbus attempted to reach the east by sailing west across the Atlantic.

• 1498—Vasco da Gama, commissioned by Portugal, opened an Eastern trade route to India

• 1519 Portuguese Ferdinand Magellan—in search of a western trade route for Spain—sailed around South America into a vast ocean he called the Pacific

Humanism: An Emphasis on the Individual

Medieval philosophers’ systems of thought was mainly centered around God and questions of religions.

Humanists were interested

in human values, and they

revived the study of classical

Greek and Roman art,

literature, history, and

philosophy.

Humanism: An Emphasis on the Individual

• Humanists nurtured classicism in the arts—the application of Greco-Roman principles such as reason, balance, and moderation.

The Arts in the Renaissance

Wealthy Italian merchant families used their riches to support the exploration of human thought and imagination.

They became patrons of the arts, financing the works of writers, musicians, philosophers, and other artists and thinkers.

The Arts in the Renaissance

• The works of Renaissance artists clearly expressed the belief that humankind is the measure of all things.

• Giotto (Italian painter) developed a new style of painting that emphasized natural-looking forms instead of flat, stylized figures.

• Michelangelo was fascinated with the shape, substance, and power of the human body.

The Arts in the Renaissance

• Leonardo da Vinci is perhaps the most imaginative and gifted figure of the Renaissance. He was an inventor, artist, architect, musician, and scientist. He studied the moon’s effect on the tides, initiated the science of hydraulics, and studied human anatomy. He also designed several flying devices.

A New Spirit of InquiryDa Vinci made detailed

observations, which were carefully recorded into notebooks. This method of inquiry was different from the medieval method of relying on information approved by the Church.

Scientists began questioning accepted teachings as they developed their skills of observation.

A New Spirit of Inquiry• Nicolaus Copernicus challenged the views of

Ptolemy, an ancient astronomer who had claimed that the sun revolved around the earth. Copernicus argued that the earth rotated on an axis and revolved around the sun.

• Galileo, 100 years later, wrote a book defending Copernicus’s theory.

• The Church’s Inquisitors forced him to withdraw his statements, but legend has it that as he rose from his knees after his recantation, he whispered, “But it does move!”

The Rise of Printing

• Around 1455, Johann Gutenberg produced Europe’s first printed book, the Gutenberg Bible.

• The Church strongly resisted this new technology.

• More than one printer was burned at the stake as a heretic.

The Church Loses Power

• Reform began to occur as critics began to question the sale of indulgences—the practice of “forgiving” sins in exchange for money.

• They demanded that the Church practice the poverty it preached.

• John Wycliffe was a reformer who taught that people had a direct relationship to God and did not need priests to act as go-betweens.

The Church Loses Power• Desiderius Erasmus was a Dutch priest and

scholar who sharply criticized the Church and advocated reform.

• He helped pave the way for Martin Luther, the German monk who, in 1517, officially began the Reformation when he made a public list of complaints against Church practices.

• Luther was asked to recant, and he refused. Instead, he led the reform movement, called Protestantism, forward.

• Luther influenced John Calvin, whose teachings became the basis of Puritanism in England and America.

Renaissance Literature• The Italian poet Petrarch was a key literary

figure, who was perhaps the first person to use the term Renaissance to describe the time in which he lived.

• He popularized sonnets.

• He and Giovanni Boccaccio were among the first writers to use the vernacular rather than Latin.

Renaissance Literature

In France, Francois Rabelais wrote a series of stories called Gargantua and Pantagruel.

In Spain, Miguel de Cervantes wrote what many consider to be the first novel in the Western hemisphere, about Don Quixote.

Nowhere is the spirit of the English Renaissance better expressed than in the plays of William Shakespeare. His skill in language and characterization has earned him a place with the greatest writers of all time.