英美文学Lecture1,Shakespeare.ppt

The Renaissance The Renaissance marks a transition from the medieval to the modern world. Generally it refers to the period between the 14th and mid-17th centuries. The Renaissance, which means rebirth or revival, is actually a movement stimulated by a series of historical events, such as the rediscovery of ancient Roman and Greek cultures, the new discoveries in geography and astrology, the religious reformation and the economic expansion. Black Death The Black Death in Florence, which hit Europe between 1348 and 1350, resulted in a shift in the world view of people in 14th-century Italy. Italy was particularly badly hit by the plague, and it has been speculated that the resulting familiarity with death caused thinkers to dwell more on their lives on Earth, rather than on spirituality and the afterlife. the Humanist Essence The Renaissance 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. the Renaissance humanism Shakespeare modified the revenge story and make it resonate with the most fundamental themes and problems of the Renaissance. The Renaissance is a vast cultural phenomenon that began in fifteenth-century Italy with the recovery of classical Greek and Latin texts that had been lost to the Middle Ages.? Skepticism about Humanism As the Renaissance spread to other countries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, however, a more skeptical strain of humanism developed, stressing the limitations of human under-standing.? For instance, human beings could never hope to see past those appearances into the “realities” that lie behind them. ?This is the world in which Shakespeare places his characters. Truth Vs. Lies Hamlet is faced with the difficult task of cor