RENAISSANCE

PERIOD

LITERATURE

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RENAISSANCE

• The word “Renaissance” is a French word which means “rebirth”.

• It refers particularly to a renewed interest in classical learning – the writings of ancient Greece and Rome.

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RENAISSANCE

• The Renaissance was a cultural movement that started in Italy

and spread all over Europe.

• It is considered to be the division between the Middle Ages and the

Modern era.

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RENAISSANCE

• The thinkers of this period, also called “humanists”, believed that the man should be the subject of study, and not God, as the Church had taught during the medieval period.

4

The Printing Press

• Johannes Gutenburg is credited with inventing the first printing press in Germany around 1400. By 1476 William Caxton had his own printing press up and running in Westminster, England.

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The Printing Press

The Printing Press

• The Printing Press: William Caxton was the person who introduced printing in England. Before that, the books were written out in longhand, what meant a very slow jog.

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William Caxton

The Recuyell of

the Historyesof Troye, printed in

1473.

Thomas More: (1480-1535)

• Thomas More was is considered one of the greatest of all English humanists, mainly for the book “Utopia”, written in Latin, in which were about an imaginary island where everything is perfect.

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Utopia

• Utopia means “nowhere” in Greek; Thomas knew clearly that such an island could never exist. This dream of a place where happiness reigns and sorrow is banished is the most persistent of human fantasies and became a recurrent theme in many other British literature works.

Thomas More Utopia

Italian Genius of Renaissance

Writing

• Machiavelli published a book in 1513, The Prince. Theorized about how a perfect ruler would govern.

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Bible

• In 1604, King James I ordered forty-seven scholars to produce a translation of the Bible to serve as the official one of the Anglicanism, the so-called “King James Bible”.

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It was published in 1611 and is considered

a masterpiece of English prose.

William Shakespeare: (1564-1616)

• William is considered the greatest of all English authors; his texts and plays are known worldwide and are updated constantly.

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Romeo and Juliet

Hamlet

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Macbeth

• Macbeth compares life to a candle, then to a shadow, to an actor and finally to a story; this rapid shifting of metaphors is very characteristic of Shakespeare’s work.

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Great writers from the Renaissance

Period

• Christopher Marlowe

• Sir Walter Raleigh

• Robert Herrick

• Andrew Marvell

• William Shakespeare

• John Donne

• Ben Jonson• Francis Bacon• John Milton• John Bunyan• Edmund Spenser• Sir John Suckling• Richard Lovelace

Poetry of the Renaissance/Elizabethan Age

• Major themes – love and beauty Physical beauty –outward sign of the spirit striving for perfection

(humanist theory).

• “Fair” = a sign of beauty

Poetry of the

Renaissance/Elizabethan Age

• Poet writes to a lady who is inflexible. Man seeks her love, but hopelessly. Her moods create the weather. Lady is usually not real (a stereotype).

Mona Lisa

Carpe Diem

• Carpe Diem is a Latin phrase which means “seize the day.”

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“Live for today. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow

we die.”

Pastoral Poetry

• Pastoral Poetry focuses on the idealized countryside and the simple life.

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Three Sonnet Types

• Petrarchan (Italian)

• Shakespearean (English)

• Spenserian

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Sonnets

Characteristics of ALL sonnets:

• meter = iambic pentameter

• rhyme = definite, but varies from sonnet to sonnet

• 14 lines long

Sonnets

Variations in sonnets:

• rhyme

• structure (octave – sestet VS. quatrains and a couplet)