The Renaissance Movement

Characteristics

· To many writers it is used to designate merely the revival of classical art. The Renaissance was essentially an intellectual movement. It is this intellectual quality which gives it so large a place in universal history.

· Under the influence of the intellectual revival the men of Western Europe came to think and feel, to look upon life and the outer world, as the men of ancient Greece and Rome did; and this again is merely to say that they stopped thinking and feeling as mediaeval men and began to think and feel as modern men.

· The Italian Renaissance which occurred first, focused on the city-states of northern Italy and Rome. The Italian Renaissance tended to be more worldly with a great emphasis on secular pursuits, the humanities, and the arts wealth and power knowledge was the key.

· The Northern Renaissance occurred later and involved the regions of Northern Europe, England, Spain, France, Germanic regions (Holy Roman Empire), and the Netherlands.

Background of the Renaissance

· High and Late Middle Ages increased trade and commercial activity

· During the High Middle Ages there was urbanization-growth of cities, towns, commercial and business developments (banking).

· Middle class merchant elite developed.

· Decline in feudalism.

· There was a decline in the Church’s hold and control on society and government.

· Growth in vernacular literature/growing literacy. Rise of universities and the expansion of learning.

· The focus of the Renaissance in Northern Europe was more religious.

· Many sought religious reform and a return of the Church to its true mission and spirituality.

· Many were highly critical of the worldliness and corruption in the Church and papacy (Office or authority of the pope)

· Northern Renaissance figures believed that education and literacy were key to social and religious reform

· They supported incorporating the translation of the scriptures into the vernacular languages

Major Themes

· Humanism (both secular and religious)- The great intellectual movement of Renaissance Italy was humanism.

· Human potential, human progress

· Expansion of human knowledge

· Secularism -greater emphasis on non-religious values and concerns

· Individualism -focus on the unique qualities and abilities of the individual person

Authors

· Elizabeth I (1533-1603)

· Campion, Thomas (1567-1620)

· Donne, John (1572-1631)

· Jonson, Ben (1572-1637)

· Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

· Marlowe, Christopher (1564-1593)

· Milton, John (1608-1674)

· Spenser, Emund (1552-1299)

· Sir Philip Sydney (1554-1586)

· Sir Thomas More (1478-1535)

· Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder (1503-1542)

· Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618)

· Calvin, John (1509-1564)

· Wroth, Mary (ca. 1587- ca. 1651)

The Pheonix and The Turtle

William Shakespeare

LET the bird of loudest lay,

On the sole Arabian tree,

Herald sad and trumpet be,

To whose sound chaste wings obey.

But thou shrieking harbinger,

Foul precurrer of the fiend,

Augur of the fever's end,

To this troop come thou not near!

From this session interdict

Every fowl of tyrant wing,

Save the eagle, feather'd king:

Keep the obsequy so strict.

Let the priest in surplice white,

That defunctive music can,

Be the death-divining swan,

Lest the requiem lack his right.

And thou treble-dated crow,

That thy sable gender makest

With the breath thou givest and takest,

'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.

Here the anthem doth commence:

Love and constancy is dead;

Phoenix and the turtle fled

In a mutual flame from hence.

So they loved, as love in twain

Had the essence but in one;

Two distincts, division none:

Number there in love was slain.

Hearts remote, yet not asunder;

Distance, and no space was seen

'Twixt the turtle and his queen:

But in them it were a wonder.

So between them love did shine,

That the turtle saw his right

Flaming in the phoenix' sight;

Either was the other's mine.

Property was thus appalled,

That the self was not the same;

Single nature's double name

Neither two nor one was called.

Reason, in itself confounded,

Saw division grow together,

To themselves yet either neither,

Simple were so well compounded,

That it cried, How true a twain

Seemeth this concordant one!

Love hath reason, reason none,

If what parts can so remain.

Whereupon it made this threne

To the phoenix and the dove,

Co-supremes and stars of love,

As chorus to their tragic scene.

Threnos.

Beauty, truth, and rarity,

Grace in all simplicity,

Here enclosed in cinders lie.

Death is now the phoenix' nest

And the turtle's loyal breast

To eternity doth rest,

Leaving no posterity:

'Twas not their infirmity,

It was married chastity.

Truth may seem, but cannot be:

Beauty brag, but 'tis not she;

Truth and beauty buried be.

To this urn let those repair

That are either true or fair

For these dead birds sigh a prayer.