Renaissance-Humanism

Renaissance Humanism

Keywords in the study of English literature: these three terms are often used to define the period of time between the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modernity.

• Humanism: It began in 400 when the Middle Ages (→ divine was more important to human) ended in 1492 when America was discovered by Colombo. This event marked the change, the passage between natural magic, so it was changed into culture (what created technology that is the manipulation of nature) by humans. Effect: colonies began to work and have a role.

Humanism is a literary phenomenon that affected several parts of Italy leading to several consequences all over Europe. The rediscovery of Greek, Jewish, and other languages lost in times, alongside the vast knowledge kept in the ancient books led to a radical change in how people saw themselves and the world. Driven by a newly discovered curiosity and appreciation for life, humanity went through a scientific revolution that raised the life quality of all social classes. It emphasized the value of human beings and mankind acquired a different role; humanism began when humans understood that they could change nature with intellectual labor: experimental science.

In a primitive society, everybody tried to survive. As we evolved, we began to have more time to organize society and specialize in particular jobs (hunting, looking after children, etc.) so humans understood that dividing the tasks was more profitable. This is how they began to articulate society. At the beginning, society was simple and based on self-preservation (food), survival, and preservation of the group (sex to have children), but once they organized themselves, they found a way to start concentrating on activities that weren’t only meant for survival. Then they decided to specialize based on their personal abilities and exchange what they got out of it, leading to the emergence of individuality.

They focused on actual living, developing technology, lifestyle, beauty, and also creating “free time” activities that imitated the bases of the society to have fun—dance, play, read. (Dancing is an imitation of the ritual of courtship; the game of chess represents war.) Manual abilities became refined by intellectual abilities, which allowed for social mobility—that is, the possibility to improve oneself, social status, wealth, and everything that defines you in society in whatever way you decide, in the right and legitimate way or in criminal ways by looking into yourself and seeing your abilities and wishes and pursuing them at your own risks. People were able to craft their life through personal abilities given by God.

In the meantime, literacy (reading and writing in Latin) was very important. Even though this period was a period of despair (illnesses, collation because of barbarian invasion, destruction of communities), some people, under religion protection, kept libraries. At first, the pursuit of knowledge was reserved only for clergy and monks, since society had regressed because of the barbarian invasion for whom reading was the least important. Monks had the ability to translate languages and with the growing development of society, more people were able to read and write, including laypeople, so they started to make a profession out of intellectual abilities: intellectual = someone who works with his brain. [Clerk now means “impiegato”, in medieval times was someone that made a profession out of intellectual abilities, with his brain, even if not in a religious order; in Italian, “umanista” → Petrarch]

The phenomenon that helped with this “revolution” is the establishment of universities; the first-ever university was established in Bologna in 1088, still in the middle ages, and in a couple of centuries, they spread all over Europe. Padua was the second one in Italy, built in 1222. They gave laypeople the opportunity to become intellectuals, but at the beginning was only for men and university permitted to those who got an education to raise their social status, which studies were offered to nobles or to the community.

These abilities (intellectual and manual) allowed people to create “social mobility”, that is the possibility to improve yourself in society and change social statement by your own effort: individualism.

Poets were believed to see the future and there was this plant, laurel, that was considered to bring glory and was associated with immortality, so when poet was considered as a profession (and the possibility to study it at university), Petrarch asked to have “laurel crown” and used it for poetic glory. Petrarch builds an image as a poet who has a new role in society because he lets the community glory become immortal. Poetry is also something that you learn thanks to the universities, so you can teach other poets professionalization of poetry = you can be a poet by profession recognized socially. He took a step forward and started toying with the word “laurel” and “Laura” (the name of his beloved) putting this dichotomy in the center of his poetic corpus. With time, the laurel became more and more important as a symbol and started to represent all kinds of literacy, being adopted by universities to represent the end of someone’s cultural journey.

• Renaissance: Started when humanism was taking form, people started to give impulses to a strong development of science, arts, and technology helped by the universities which expanded to other people. It was seen as a happy moment when everything changed for the better, but, actually, started with the plague.

Renaissance has a strong bond with humanism, but, while the former is mainly a cultural phenomenon eradicated in Italy, the latter covers all aspects of the social and daily life and regards all of Europe. The newly acquired technological knowledge entails improved farming techniques which raise the economy and reduce the individual working time, while the frequent pandemics of plague lead to the birth of the profession of doctor who raised the life expectation. Now people live longer and have more free time, which means they have time to live instead of merely struggling to survive.

Since fewer people need to work in the fields, new professions were born to fulfill the new desire to enjoy life, like goldsmiths, cooks, and so on. This meant that people weren’t forced anymore to do the same job for their entire life, but they could aspire to better through hard work and individual skills, which has never happened before since the Roman era. The link between technological and cultural progress in this era is represented by rhetoric, the “science of speaking well”, which is essential for both politics and forensics.

In this period, men discovered themselves and abandoned superstitions and put together moments in which the desire for humanism begins to take form because of some historical events:

• The plague/black death traveled to Europe and the entire social structure collapsed, lots of people died, and the creation of new professions were very important at that moment.
• The invention of printing made books available, in fact, owing manuscripts/books were very expensive. This was very important because knowledge remained for only a few people. So, with printing people could finally have books and make them available to common people.
• Protestant reformation (against religion corruption): Luther through the press disseminated the knowledge, insisted on the fact that people should read the Bible but this one was written in Latin, so not everyone understood. The Bible needed to be translated into German, Luther did it and printed it in order to be available and to have the possibility to teach it in German. This insists on a direct connection between the single individual and God. In the Catholic Church, everything you know about God is given through the mediation of the priest, so knowing and reading the Bible was important because during the sacraments the priest becomes momentary God and has the divine role, and with the reformation, they thought that every single individual must find a direct relation with God and the priest can only guide or help you. That’s why it began to be important to know how to understand and read the Bible.

• Early Modern: Logically, this process took a lot of time, so regarding the conventional date of 1492 used to define the end of the Middle Age, still today we don’t know the exact period and this age is vague and undefined. For this reason, English scholars tend to refer to this period just as the “early modern era”, as the passage between the Middle Age and the modern age.

It referred to the same period, but pointed in different directions:

• Humanism looks to the role of the intellectual.
• Renaissance looks to the development of art, technology, and science.
• Early modern is more a time span (segment of time).

The words “humanism” and “renaissance” didn’t exist in that period; only in the 19th century did the Germans give this title.

Literacy in Humanism and Renaissance Era

During the 15th century, a few English clerics and government officials had journeyed to Italy and had seen something of the extraordinary cultural and intellectual movement flourishing in the city-states there. That movement was known as the Renaissance, which involved a rebirth of letters and arts stimulated by the recovery of texts.

English humanism flourished in two stages: the first a basically academic movement that had its roots in the 15th century and culminated in the work of Sir Thomas More, Sir Thomas Elyot, and Roger Ascham and the second a poetic revolution led by Sir Philip Sidney and William Shakespeare. English Renaissance was based on Protestant and, in some aspects, on Puritan cultures; therefore, it lacked the Italian joyful brilliance based on pagan serenity. Instead, the English individualism and self-awareness awakened by humanism was more centered on responsibility rather than on self-assertion and enjoyment.

Another aspect that must also be considered with English differentiation is that although Latin was considered of great importance, their main effort was to develop a modern English that could have the same dignity as other European languages. Thus, they struggled to improve its vocabulary and syntax.

Painting: Hans Holbein, The Ambassadors (1533)

Holbein was German, but the painting would have been made in England and it was made after the court. The painting is crammed full of things:

• There are two ambassadors who represent wealth and knowledge.
• Their clothing is quite beautiful and black, which is the color of grief and money because to dye in black was expensive and you needed a lot of dye because it was quite impossible to have a black dye permanent.
• The shelves in the middle are filled with additional symbols that show both men were well educated in a variety of ways.
• The upper shelf is filled with scientific instruments and has been referred to as the heavenly realm. Let's look more closely at these objects. Sitting on top of a luxurious oriental carpet, we have a globe of the heavens, a quadrant, and several instruments used to tell time, including two types of sundials.
• The lower shelf is filled with the objects of man and thought to be the earthly realm. Here we have a globe of the earth, a book open to reveal mathematics, a lute, several flutes, and a songbook open to reveal specific hymns.

If you look closely at the lute, you will see that one of the strings has been broken. Therefore, an instrument which would be considered harmonious is now a symbol of discord. Was this a symbol of discord between England and the Catholic Church? Perhaps instead it was a symbol of the discord between Henry VIII and Catherine as the queen failed to produce a suitable heir to the throne. Later, in the 17th century, the lute was frequently used in Northern European painting as a symbol of a woman's sexual organs, though we don't know if there is any connection to that in this painting.

Still lower in the painting are the unique type of flooring and the anamorphic skull, which is unrecognizable when viewing the painting head-on. We must stand to the side and crouch down in order to see it, though it is thought that it originally hung over a flight of stairs and that the viewer would have an easier time seeing this skull, perhaps so as to be taken by surprise by it. While there are other examples of anamorphic art (where an image can only be seen from a certain viewpoint), it wasn't common at the time. (Symbolizes “memento mori” = reminder that you had to die.)

On the top left-hand corner, there’s a crucifix half hidden; in 1533, England hid the crucifix meaning to hide the symbols of the Catholic faith, because in 1533 is when the Church of Rome was challenged. There is an astrolabe on the top of the table = an instrument that you use to measure the distance of stars but its setting is impossible to use. The painter is saying there’s power, wealth, learning, art, and beauty but also divisions = problems. It is anamorphic painting = you can see this kind of monsters-little baby if you're straight in front of the painting but if you look on one side you see a normal lady. He presents the idea of self-fashioning = present your mind as well as your body.

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618)

He was a very important public figure of his time: he was a noble, an explorer, a soldier, and a colonizer who discovered Guyana. This land was famous for its goldmines (which made many people believe it was the legendary land of Eldorado). This discovery earned him the favor of Queen Elizabeth I. However, her heir to the throne, James I, accused him of betrayal and imprisoned him in the Tower of London in 1603. He also published “A Discovery of the Empire of Guiana.” Set free for a short period of time in 1617, he was captured again and executed the next year. James I was a paranoid king, since the former queen executed his mother and he had many enemies in the kingdom, but we have no idea whether Raleigh was actually guilty or not.

During his imprisonment, Raleigh wrote his last and incomplete work: History of the World. It was published in 1614 and dedicated to Prince Harry, and the history shows evidence of his ambition and scholarship:

It is therefore Death alone that can suddenly make man know himself. He tells the proud and insolent, that they are but abjects, and humbles them at the instant; makes them cry, complain, and repent; yea, even to hate their fore-passed happiness. He takes the account of the rich, and proves him a beggar; a naked beggar, which hath interest in nothing, but in the gravel that fills his mouth. He holds a glass before the eyes of the most beautiful, and makes them see therein their deformity and rottenness; and they acknowledge it.

While writing, he wasn’t ill or injured, but the captivity gave him the certainty of an imminent death, and this mood is reflected in the preface of the book, where the author talks with Death himself. For the author, Death is the only medium to obtain the final knowledge, since it tears apart self-deceptions and shows the truth. In this period, people asked themselves how much they could fight God’s will through medicine, cosmetics, and technological advancement. But the very limit is Death itself, which nobody can defeat.

An interesting digression can be made about the scientific developments concerning the female body, which was considered a taboo for a very long time, delaying for centuries the advancements in this branch of medicine. For example, for centuries people believed that women could be affected by hysteria, a mental illness that nowadays we know doesn’t exist.

Raleigh’s language in the preface is very theatrical, making it easy to read it out loud. In fact, theatre is the main form of entertainment of this period and it helps the reader to become familiar with the book. Theatre is an independent form of art, unbent by the king nor the church, a place where people can manifest their real ideas and ideals. In these arenas, often placed in the suburbs, among taverns and brothels (in London they were placed in the south of river Thames, the poorest part of the city), people could even manifest hostility towards the kingdom and Raleigh, in his condition, was looking for this kind of readers.

For the author, Death makes us understand the difference between what we care for and what we should care for, the real values of mankind like mind and soul, the only eternal goods that we have. In the second half of the speech, he talks directly to Death, in a direct and informal, yet humble, tone. The speech leads to the acceptance of the human condition, of the power and arrogant, which fade away in the presence of Death.

He wrote also a number of lyrics and longer poems. He was unpopular because of his success and there is a wealth of contemporary criticism, particularly of his philosophical and scientific dealings. He sponsored the astronomer Thomas Herriot who may have had connections with Marlowe. Raleigh was part of a circle of atheists.

In 1591, his vivid account of Sir Richard Grenville’s heroic but ultimately fatal encounter with the Spanish fleet “A Report of the Truth of the Fight about the Isles of the Azores” was published. He also wrote a poem to the Queen “The Eleventh and Twelfth Books of the Ocean’s Love to Cynthia”, a formal courtship of Elizabeth, describes the penalties and pains involved in the relationship and unequal power relations. Its style and vocabulary recall the sonnets of Wyatt and speak of the effects of his addiction to his obsessive desires (love):

And as a man distract, with triple might
Bound in strong chains doth strive and rage in vain,
Till tired and breathless he is forced to rest,
Finds by contention but increase of pain,
And fiery heat inflam'd in swollen breast:
So did my mind in change of passion
From woe to wrath, from wrath return to woe,
Struggling in vain from love's subjection;
Therefore, all lifeless and all helpless bound,
My fainting spirits sunk, and heart appaled,
My joys and hopes lay bleeding on the ground,
That not long since the highest heaven scaled

Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897)

When humanism goes to the North, it takes up this added element theater in England, so the theme of the theatre also colors our idea of humanism.