《英美文学选读》英国文学The Renaissance Period.docVIP

PART ONE：ENGLISH LITERATUREChapter 1 The Renaissance Period 　　一、About the Renaissance　　1.The origination of Renaissance　　The renaissance makes a transition from the medieval to the modern word. Generally，it refers to the period between the 14th and mid-17th centuries. It fist started in Italy，with the flowering of painting，sculpture and literature.　　The Renaissance，which means re-birth or revival，is actually a movement stimulated by a series of historical events，such as the rediscovery of ancient Roman and Greek culture，the new discoveries in geography and astrology，the religious reformation and the economic expansion.　　The Renaissance，therefore，in essence，is a historical period in which the European humanist thinkers and scholars made attempts to get rid of those old feudalist ideas in medieval Europe，to introduce new ideas that expressed the interests of the rising bourgeoisie，and to recover the purity of the early church from the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church.　　2.Humanism　　（1）Humanism is the essence of the Renaissance.　　（2）It sprang from the endeavor to restore a medieval reverence for the antique authors of Greek and Roman Civilization based on the conception that man is measure of all things.　　（3）Renaissance humanists found in the classics a justification to exalt human nature and came to see that human beings were glorious creatures capable of individual development in the direction of perfection, and that the world they inhabited was theirs not to despise but to question explore and enjoy.　　（4）By emphasizing the dignity of human beings and the importance of the present life, they voiced their beliefs that man did not only have the right to enjoy the beauty of this life, but had the ability to perfect himself and to perform wonders.　　（5）Humanism began to take hold in England when the Dutch Scholar Desiderius Erasmus came to teach the classical learning, first at Oxford and then at Cambridge.　　（6）Thomas More, Christopher Marlowe and William