英国文学课件lecture 3 Renaissance.pptVIP

Lecture 3 An Age of Renaissance An Overview of Renaissance The aspects of the Renaissance Background and Writers of The English Renaissance How Renaissance occurred in Europe? In 1453, the Turks seized Constantinople which had been the center of Mediterranean civilization for a thousand years. When Constantinople fell to the hands of the Turks, many of its Greek teachers fled with their libraries to Italy and taught in Italian universities. Thus, in the late 14th and 15th centuries, scholars in western European countries had a keen interest in the Greek and Latin culture. The art and science of ancient Greece and Rome were being born again after long years of neglect. This intellectual and literary movement is called Renaissance, a French word which means “rebirth” in English. This movement began in Italy, and later spread to France, Spain, the Netherlands, and England. Renaissance is considered as the great flowering of art, architecture, politics, and the study of literature, and is also usually seen as the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern world. The emphasis of the Renaissance is humanism. Renaissance Humanism is the spirit of learning that developed at the end of the middle ages with the revival of classical letters and a renewed confidence in the ability of human beings to determine for themselves truth and falsehood. Humanism: The ideal of Renaissance is humanism, which emphasized the welfare of human beings. According to humanist scholars, it was against human nature to sacrifice the happiness of this life for an after life. They argued that man should be given full freedom to enrich their intellectual and emotional life. In religion they demanded the reformation of the church. In art and literature, instead of singing praise to God, they sang in praise of man and of the pursuit of happiness in this life. Humanism shattered the shackles of sp