SUMMARY OF THE THIRD DOCUMENT

ENGLISH RENAISSANCE

-      “Renaissance” is the term used to refer to the period in western civilization which marks the transition from the medieval to the modern world (14th – mid 17th C).

-      Renaissance opposed the old feudal values and expressed the interests of the rising bourgeoisie.

-      The main traits of the Renaissance are:

-      Emphasis of Greek and Roman classics

-      Reappraisal of pagan classical culture

-      Questioning the authority of the Church

-      Renaissance started in Italy, in particular with the flowering of arts in cities like Florence and Venice. From Italy the movement spread in the rest of Europe, assuming different expressions depending on countries.

-      Renaissance was stimulated by:

-      The rediscovery of ancient Greek and Roman culture

-      The new geographic and astronomic discoveries

-      The religious reformation

-      The economic expansion

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

SOCIETY, POLITICS AND ECONOMY

-      The Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453)

-      The war of the Roses (1455-1485)

-      The Civil war or Bourgeois Revolution (1642-1660)

-      Restoration (1660-1688)

-      Glorious Revolution (1688)

-      The Agrarian Revolution

-      Development of the clothing industry

-      Discovery of new lands

IDEOLOGY    

SCIENCES

-      Heliocentrism (Copernicus and Kepler)

-      Gravitational force (Galileo)

-      Moon’s mountainous nature and discovery of Jupiter’s satellites (Galileo)

HUMANISM

-      Humanism is the idea that a man has a potential for culture which distinguishes him from lower orders of beings and which he should strive constantly to fulfill.

-      The most important elements of humanism were:

-      Belief in man’s divinity and importance of personal worth

-      Enjoyment of the present life and blind faith in after-life

-      Rebellious spirit against the medieval feudal values.

-      Humanism was the reaction against the thinking of the Catholic Church.

-      Indeed, though the Church encouraged civilization at the beginning, it gradually impeded the progress of culture. According to it, all actions men did should be directed to salvation; earthly life and cultural progress were considered not important.

RELIGION

-      Martin Luther, a young professor at Wittenberg, started the Protestant reformation. According to him, every true Christian was his own priest and was entitled to interpret Scripture for himself.

-      Henry VIII, the English king of the time, decided to cut ties with Rome and to support the Protestant Reformation, also on his new wife’s suggestion. The population welcomed his decision, since they too were dissatisfied with the corruption of the Church and inspired by the reformers’ ideas from the Continent.

-      Henry VIII declared himself as the Supreme Head of the Church of England in 1534; monasteries and the monastic orders were suppressed and abbots were removed from the House of Lord.

-      By the middle of Elizabeth’s reign, Protestantism had been firmly established, with a certain compromise between Catholicism and Protestantism.

-      The reformation of the church reflected the struggle waged by the new rising bourgeoisie against feudalism.

LITERATURE

-      Translation into English of:

-      Greek and Roman classics (Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Virgil’s Aeneid, Plato, Aristotle, Seneca and Plautus)

-      Contemporary Italian and French works (Dante, Plutarch, Horace)

-      The Bible (King James authorized version)

-      Imitation and assimilation of classic and foreign writers:

-      Epics (Homer, Virgil, Dante) à Spenser, Milton

-      Sonnet (Petrarch, Dante) à Shakespeare, Sidney, Jonson, Donne and Andrew Marvell

-      Drama (Seneca, Plautus) à Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson

DRAMA BEFORE RENAISSANCE

-      Mystery plays: religious plays performed in the Middle Ages during the great Church festivals. They dealt with stories from the Bible and the lives of saints.

-      They derived from the performance of the Mass: sometimes at Christmas or Easter there were dialogue interpolations illustrating religious scenes. They were played by priests in Latin.

-      Dancing and semi-dramatic performances were common pre-Christian traditions and they survived in Christian times as seasonal celebrations performed at Church festivals.

-      In the 14th C. the trade guilds of the towns started to replace clergy in the organization of the mystery plays. They added elements which were disapproved by the Church, although the main events remained Christian.

-      By the time the plays became completely secularized and written in English: they told episodes from the Old and New Testament demonstrating God’s justice and mercy.

-      Miracle plays: further development of Mystery plays

-      Morality Plays: they dealt with the summons of Death and the conflict of vices and virtues in man’s life.

-      They had characters representing abstract qualities or human stereotypes.

-      Characterization is more developed than in the other plays.

ELIZABETHAN DRAMA (early 16th – 17th C)

-      Plays were written by professional playwrights and performed by theatrical troupes. Both of them were supported by noble patronage.

-      Drama was very widespread among all social classes as a form of entertainment and education.

-      There were no women players; prop-ups were simple.

-      Plays dealt with different topics; they told stories of perfect heroes or ordinary humans. Epic, tragedy and comedy were equally developed.

MAJOR PLAYWRIGHTS

-      Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593): first great English dramatist. He is considered the father of English tragedy

-      He is a rebel both against the human conventions and against the natural limitations.

-      He employed blank verse, establishing the verse form as the predominant form in English drama.

-      He expressed the humanist ideals about the infinite capabilities of Man.

-      William Shakespeare (1564-1616): one of the most important playwrights and poets in the world.

-      He depicts lively human life and nature, reflecting on human reality.

-      Representative works: the Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Mid-summer Night’s Dream

-      Ben Jonson (1572-1637): the first poet laureate

-      Representative works: Volpone, the fox