The Renaissance and the English Renaissance

The Renaissance developed from the 14^th to the 17^th century; it spread in a first time in Italy, then it moved to the North of Europe.

"Renaissance" means "re-birth" and it was a period full of new discoveries: geographical with the discovery of America, the New World; scientific with Copernicus and his theory about the centrality of sun in the planetary system; religious with Martin Luther and the division of Church.

The Renaissance took again the Classical period's concept of the Great Chain of Being. The Great Chain of Being, everything had a specific place in the planned hierarchical order. The place of an object was determinated by his proportion of spirit and matter: the higher was his spirit, the higher was his position in the Great Chain of Being. In fact, inanimated objects were at the bottom of the order, then came animals, then humans and, at the end, were the angels. God was the top of the hierarchical order.

In this period, politics needed a stronger form of rule and order because the costant fear of disorder was not related only to the political purpose, but also to the Great Chain of Being: disorder and civil rebellion could cause a fracture in the Great Chain of Being and this meant sins against God. In Northern Europe found place national monarchies headed by kings, as England and France; meanwhile, in Italy wealthy oligarchic families rose up.

During the Renaissance, there was a cultural current known as Humanism. Humanism regarded human beings and put the man at the centre of the world: it represented a shift of values from the contemplative life to active life, in service of the state. Renaissance Man, according to Humanism, was an individual with skills and knowledge in many subject areas.

In the Renaissance, literary critics took again the classic literature to express moral values through it: this was called "imitation" and was used to teach the Renaissance Man.

The Protestant Reformation had a significant rule in the Renaissance, because Martin Luther criticized Church's corruption, so this brought him to fought against the Church and the people who followed Martin Luther were known as Protestants. Other Catholic people, like Erasmus tried to reform the Church from the inside.

The religion fracture had literary consequences: the Protestant rejection of Pope's figure was moved into the Bible. All Protestant believers needed to know the Bible by themselves, so the text was translated into the popular language, leaving it also in its original language.