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Renaissance | Impact on Science, Art, Literature and English Society

Renaissance Definition

The Italian term ‘Renaissance’ means ‘rebirth’. The term is traditionally applied to the intellectual movements that embraced the re-awakening of scholarship and self-emancipation of the individual from the thraldom of institutions. More properly Renaissance is applied to the revival of arts resulting from the rediscovery and imitation of classical models. The French historian Jules Michelet for the first time used this term. It is derived from the Italian ‘Rinascita’ means - ‘rebirth’.

 

To quote Michelet ‘renaissance’ means;

The discovery of the world and the discovery of man, by man.

Martine sings with the same strain,

Man discovered himself and the universe

Whereas Taine opines that so long blinded, “had suddenly opened his eyes and seen.

 

Renaissance History

Italy was the cradle of the Renaissance. The fire Renaissance spreads from here. But it dates back to the capture of Constantinople in 1453 by the Turks. With the fall of Constantinople, many Greek Scholars flocked to Italy with their manuscripts. The result was that Italian cities became centres of GK study and classical culture. The study of Greek literature and culture spread the perfumes to open up the petals of the sleeping beauty of Europe. The term Humanism sprang up from it. ‘Theocentric’ (i.e.; Man is the centre of the universe) world. The revival of Greek learning gave birth to an enlightened life which trumpets the glory of man and human life. So Mephistopheles says to Dr Faustus with the sting of Renaissance in his lips

Why, Faustus, Thinkest thou heaven is such a glorious thing? I tell thee, ‘tis not half so fair as thou Or any man that breathes on earth”. [Dr. Faustus. Act-II. Sc (iii)]

 

Renaissance Philosophy

So we have the same glimpses of Renaissance thought in an oration by Pico Della Mirandola, ‘On the Dignity of Man’. Renaissance came to mean humanism, wonder at the new earth and sky as revealed by the navigators and astronomers, and perception of the beauty of the Greek and Latin classics. Prof. Babbit of America coined the term ‘humanism’ and with this humanistic approach started the Geographical discoveries. The invention of the Printing Press by Gutenberg and set up by Caxton in England, the springing of the Copernican system of Astronomy, and the Reformation landing by Luther, Calvin, Knox & Huss gave a new flood of Renaissance.

 

Impact of Renaissance

So ‘Renaissance’ from Italy to the English wave gives a splendid welcome to the flowering of English soil. It enlivens the drooping spirit of the dark veil of the medieval spot. It inspires new blooms 

(a) rise of nationalism,

(b) spirit of adventure,

(c) love of beauty and sensuousness,

(d) scientific studies,

(e) belief in the dignity of man and enthusiasm for new discoveries etc.

 

Renaissance Art

Art during the late 1400s and early 1500s was dominated by three masters – Michael Angelo, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci. The focus of Renaissance art was on realism. Michael Angelo’s The Statue of Moses, Raphael’s portrait of Madonna and da Vinci’s The Last Supper and Mona Lisa rank high among all art now.

 

Impact on Philosophy

With the spirit of the Renaissance various fields flourished in ‘full-throated ease’. From new learning to Humanism, from geographical networks to scientific study and invention it spreads its cobweb. Catholicism Protestantism, the feudal system to mercantile expansion Renaissance gives blessings to everyone. Classical writers like Aristotle, Erasmus, Cato, Cicero, Virgil, Ovid, Machiavelli, Montaigne, Petrarch, Dante, Boccaccio, and Cinthio, inspire the literary magma of England. To quote T.G.Wolliams –

“The free-ringing, liberal tones of the old Greek                                                     

 reacted on the modern world now emerging from tradition-bound medievalism”.

Aristo and Tasso had captured the readers with their powerful poetic genius in Orlando Furioso and Jerusalem Delivered; Castiglione’s The Courtier presented the Renaissance ideals of fine courtly conduct and the art of living. Machiavelli’s The Prince serves as a powerful guide for a successful statesman and politician.

 

Geographical and Scientific Discoveries

In the geographical field discoveries crowned on Turkish conquests, the conquest of Columbus (1492, America), John Cabot’s discovery of Newfoundland and Labrador in 1497, and Vasco de Gama’s discovery of the new India route to India (1498). The discovery of new trade routes helped to establish the commercial prosperity of countries like Spain Portugal and England. Copernicus’s theory defends Ptolemy’s theory system of the universe. This theory of Copernicus later was supported by Kepler, a German, Galileo an Italian and William Harvey, the English physician and philologist.

 

Impact on Religion

In the religious sphere, Martin Luther brought Protestantism, and Reformation came in Germany. Lutherism spread and became a clarion call for revolt. Calvinism and Anglicanism also struck at the root of Roman Catholicism. The decline of the Feudal system and the coming of foreign merchants became the keynote of the Renaissance world. The Renaissance blooms in architecture and music and in literature. Michael Angelo, Raphael, Da Vinci, Titian, Byrd and Orlando Gibbons flourished their paintings and musical strain.

 

Impact on English Literature

The impact of the Renaissance was equally evident in all the spheres of English literature. Sir Thomas More’s Utopia was certainly influenced by Plato’s Republic. Utopia is considered the masterpiece of English humanism, embodying the concept of an ideal state which would be the opposite of the inert and barren society in which the author lived. English educationists of the period Roger Asham, Sir Thomas Elyot, Sir John Cheke, and Sir Thomas Wilson, Sir Thomas Smith highlighted the significance of not only Latin and Greek languages but are seen to be extraordinarily preoccupied with Latinity: Latin pleasures, Latin elegances and Latin ways of living too! The Italian sonnet style of Petrarch was imported to England. Wyatt, Surrey, Sidney, Spenser, Daniel, Drayton and Shakespeare flourish the sonnets in a mastery fashion.

Lyrical works and epical poems also get their full growth in the Renaissance impetus. Sidney’s Astrphel and Stella. Spenser’s Hymns in Honour of Love and Beauty, pastoral elegy and love songs- Epithalamion and Prothalamion are the superb flowerings that ever bloomed. Moreover, Drayton’s Idea, Daniel’s The Complaint of Rosamond and Ben Jonson’s Moral Lyrics may be mentioned here too. In Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, Daniel’s The Civil War and The Baron's War, epic poetry magnetized the hearts of mankind.

Also, Read:

Show Ideas of Love & Marriage during Renaissance

Prose works also get its foundation like Sidney’s Arcadia, Lily’s Euphues, Lodge’s Rosalynd and Greene’s Pandasto and the essays of Bacon, Sidney, Daniel, Webb and others. In the Dramatic field Gorboduc; the 1st tragedy based on Seneca was produced. The Misfortunes of Arthur and Jocasta are also of the same type. Comedies like Ralph Roister Doister and Gammer Gurton’s Needle flourished in this era. Lyly, Peele, Greene, Kyd, and Marlowe, the master dramatists get the platform to bloom their dramatic flowers. Shakespeare stands supreme on this platform. Sidney’s An Apology of Poetry is a criticism of the Renaissance epitome.

 

Conclusion

So, to conclude there is a new flash of lightning in every sphere of life. This dazzling aura beautifies the whole decorum of the Elizabethan literary lotus. From the geographical universe to the scientific network, from classical study to modern myth, it had its far-reaching perfumed showering. The new learning encouraged and stimulated intellectual curiosity, scholarly research and the spirit of “Queer theory”. Style is the image of man was echoed by Buffon’s “Le Style est I’homme”. Masques, mime, drama, fantasy allegory, music, painting sculpture erupted later on for the Renaissance spirit. So to quote T.G. Williams once again, the Renaissance mind enlivens-

The will to live and to savour all that life.”

(‘Colonialism’ has its origin in the seed of the Renaissance).

Yes, that’s the panacea of all ages to come.

 

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