Main Text – Renaissance
“Renaissance” (“rebirth”) is the name commonly applied to the period of European history following the Middle Ages; it is usually said to have begun in Italy in the late fourteenth century and to have continued, in Italy and other countries of Western Europe, through the fifteenth and six-teenth centuries. In this period the European arts of painting, sculpture, archi-tecture, and literature reached an eminence not exceeded in any age. The development came late to England in the sixteenth century and did not have its flowering until the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods—sometimes, in fact, John Milton (1608-74) is described as the last great Renaissance poet. (See periods of English literature.)
Many attempts have been made to define “the Renaissance” in a brief state-ment, as though a single essence underlay the complex features of the intellectual and cultural life of a great variety of European countries over several hundred years. It has, for example, been described as the birth of the modern world out of the ashes of the Dark Ages; as the discovery of the world and the discovery of man; and as the era of the emergence of untrammeled individualism in life, thought, religion, and art. Some historians, finding that attributes similar to these were present in various people and places in the Middle Ages, and also that many elements long held to be medieval survived into the Renaissance, have denied that the Renaissance ever existed. This skeptical opinion serves as a reminder that history is a continuous process, and that “periods” are not intrin-sic in history but are invented by historians. Nonetheless, the division of the temporal continuum into named segments is an all but indispensable conve-nience in discussing history. Furthermore, during the span of time called “the Renaissance,” it is possible to identify a number of events and discoveries which, beginning approximately in the fifteenth century, clearly effected distinc-tive changes in the beliefs, productions, and manner of life of many people in various countries, especially those in the upper and the intellectual classes.
Beginning in the 1940s, a number of historians have replaced (or else sup-plemented) the term “Renaissance” with early modern to designate the span from the end of the Middle Ages until late in the seventeenth century. The latter term looks forward rather than back, emphasizing the degree to which the time, instead of being mainly a rebirth of the classical past, can be viewed, in its innovations and intellectual concerns, as a precursor of our present time. (See Leah S. Marcus, “Renaissance/Early Modern Studies,” in Redrawing the Boundaries, ed. Stephen Greenblatt and Giles Gunn, 1992.)
The innovations during this period may be regarded as putting a strain on the relatively closed and stable world of the great civilization of the later Middle Ages, when most of the essential and permanent truths about God, man, and the uni-verse were considered to be adequately known. The full impact of many devel-opments in the Renaissance did not make itself felt until the Enlightenment in the later seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, but the fact that they occurred in this period indicates the vitality, the restless curiosity, and the imaginative audacity of many people of the era, whether scholars, thinkers, artists, or adventurers. Prominent among these developments were the following:
- The new learning. Renaissance scholars of the classics, called humanists, revived the knowledge of the Greek language, discovered and dissemi-nated a great number of Greek manuscripts, and added considerably to the number of Roman authors and works which had been known during the Middle Ages. The result was to open up a sense of the vastness of the historical past, as well as to enlarge immensely the stock of ideas, materi-als, literary forms, and styles available to Renaissance writers. In the mid-fifteenth century the invention of printing on paper from movable type (for which Johann Gutenberg of Mainz, Germany, is usually given credit, although the Chinese had developed a similar mode of printing several centuries earlier) made books for the first time cheap and plentiful, and floods of publications, ancient and modern, poured from the presses of Europe to satisfy the demands of the expanding population who had learned to read. The rapidity and range of the spread of ideas, discoveries, and types of literature in the Renaissance was made possible by this new technology of printing. (See book and book history studies.) The technology reached England in 1476, when William Caxton set up a press at Westminster, where he published, among many other books, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur.
The humanistic revival sometimes resulted in pedantic scholarship, sterile imitations of ancient works and styles, and a rigidly authoritarian rhetoric and literary criticism. It also bred, however, the gracious and tolerant humanity of an Erasmus, and the high concept of a cultivated Renaissance aristocracy expressed in Baldassare Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano (The Courtier), published in 1528. This was the most admired and widely translated of the many Renaissance courtesy books, or books on the character, obligations, and training of the man of the court. It sets up the ideal of the completely rounded or Renaissance man, devel-oped in all his faculties and skills—physical, intellectual, and artistic. He is especially trained to be a warrior and statesman but is capable also as ath-lete, philosopher, artist, conversationalist, and man of society. The courtier’s relationships to women, and women’s to men, are represented in accordance with the quasi-religious code of Platonic love, and his activities and productions are crowned by the grace of sprezzatura—the Italian term for the seeming spontaneity and casual ease with which a trained person may meet the requirements of complex and exacting rules. Leonardo da Vinci in Italy and Sir Philip Sidney in England are often represented as embodying the many aspects of the courtly ideal.
- The new religion. The Reformation led by Martin Luther (1483-1546) was a successful heresy which struck at the very foundations of the insti-tutionalism of the Roman Catholic Church. This early Protestantism was grounded on each individual’s inner experience of spiritual struggle and salvation. Faith (based on the word of the Bible) alone was thought suffi-cient to save, and salvation itself was regarded as a direct transaction with God in the theater of the individual soul, without the need of intermedi-ation by church, priest, or sacrament. For this reason Protestantism is sometimes said to have been an extreme manifestation of “Renaissance individualism” in northern Europe; it soon, however, developed its own type of institutionalism in the theocracy proposed by John Calvin (1509-64) and his Puritan followers. Although England officially broke with the Catholic Church during the reign of Henry VIII, the new religious estab-lishment (the Anglican Church), headed by the monarch, retained many of the characteristics of the old church while embracing selected Protes-tant theological principles. The result was a political and theological com-promise that remained the subject of heated debate for centuries.
- The new world. In 1492 Christopher Columbus, acting on the persisting and widespread belief in the old Greek idea that the world is a globe, sailed west to find a new commercial route to the East, only to be frus-trated by the unexpected barrier of a new continent. The succeeding explorations of this continent and its native populations, and its settlement by Europeans, gave new materials to the literary imagination. The magic world of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, for example, as well as the treatment of its native inhabitants by Prospero and others, is based on a contemporary account of a shipwreck on Bermuda and other writings about voyages to the New World. More important for English literature, how-ever, was the fact that economic exploitation of the new world—often cruel, oppressive, and devastating to the native peoples—put England at the center, rather than as heretofore at the edge, of the chief trade routes, and so helped establish the commercial prosperity that in England, as in Italy earlier, was a necessary though not sufficient condition for the devel-opment of a vigorous intellectual and artistic life.
- The new cosmos. The cosmos of medieval astronomy and of medieval Christian theology was Ptolemaic (that is, based on the Greek astrono-mer Ptolemy, second century) and pictured a stationary earth around which rotated the successive spheres of the moon, the various planets, and then the fixed stars. Heaven, or the Empyrean, was thought to be situated above the spheres, and Hell to be situated either at the center of the earth (as in Dante’s Inferno) or else below the system of the spheres (as in John Milton’s Paradise Lost). In 1543, Copernicus published his new hypothesis concerning the astronomic system; this gave a much simpler and more coherent explanation of accumulating observations of the actual movements of the heavenly bodies, which had led to ever greater complications within the scheme of the Ptolemaic world picture. The Copernican theory proposed a system in which the center is the sun, not the earth, and in which the earth is not stationary, but only one planet among many planets, all of which revolve around the sun.
- Investigations have not borne out the earlier assumption by historians that the world picture of Copernicus and of the scientists who followed him (sometimes referred to as the new philosophy) delivered an immediate and profound shock to the theological and secular beliefs of thinking people. For example in 1611, when Donne wrote in The First Anniversary that “new Philosophy calls all in doubt,” for “the Sun is lost, and th’ earth,” he did so only to support the ancient theme, or literary topos, of the world’s decay, and to enforce a traditional Christian contemptus mundi (contempt for the worldly). Still later, Milton in Paradise Lost (1667) expressed a suspension of judgment between the Ptolemaic and Copernican theories; he adopted, however, the older Ptolemaic scheme as the cosmic setting for his poem because it was more firmly traditional and better adapted to his narrative purposes.
- Much more important, in the long run, was the effect on opinion of the general principles and methods of the new science developed by the great successors of Copernicus in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, such as the physicists Johannes Kepler and Galileo and the English physician and physiologist William Harvey. Even after Copernicus, the cosmos of many writers in the Elizabethan era (exemplified in a number of Shakespeare’s plays) not only remained Ptolemaic, it also remained an animate cosmos that was invested with occult powers and inhabited by demons and spirits, and was widely believed to control men’s lives by stellar influences and to be itself subject to control by the powers of witchcraft and of magic. The universe that emerged in the course of the seventeenth century, as a product of the scientific procedure of posing hypotheses that could be tested by precisely measured observations, was the physical one propounded by the French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650). “Give me extension and motion,” Descartes wrote, “and I will construct the universe.” The universe of Descartes and the new science consisted of extended particles of matter which moved in space according to fixed mathematical laws, free from interference by angels, demons, human prayer, or occult magical powers. This universe was, however, subject to the manipulations of experimental scientists who set out in this way to discover the laws of nature, and who, in the phrase of the English thinker Francis Bacon, had learned to obey nature in order to be her master. In Descartes and other philosophers, the working hypotheses of the scientists about the physical world were converted into a philosophical worldview, which was made current by popular expositions, and together with the methodological principle that a controlled observation is the criterion of truth in many areas of knowledge helped constitute the climate of eighteenth-century opinion known as the Enlightenment.
Joan Kelly inaugurated a spirited debate among feminist and other scholars with her essay, published in 1977, Did Women Have a Renaissance? (in Women, History and Theory, 1984). Her own answer to the question, based primarily on evidence from central Italy, was that women did not. For a book by a feminist scholar who counters this claim, by reference to women’s changing roles in the family, in the church, and in positions of political and cultural power, see Margaret L. King, Women of the Renaissance (1991).
Summary of the Renaissance
A long time ago, after the Middle Ages in Europe, there came a special period called the Renaissance, which means “rebirth.” This started in Italy around the 1300s and slowly spread to other parts of Europe, including England, where it became strong during the time of Queen Elizabeth I. People began to think in new ways, and many changes happened in art, literature, science, and religion. Some people believe this time was the beginning of the modern world, while others think it was just a continuation of the Middle Ages.
In the Renaissance, people became curious about old knowledge. They started reading the writings of ancient Greek and Roman authors. These people who loved learning were called humanists. They found old books, learned the Greek language, and began printing many books after the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg. This made books cheaper and more easily available, so more people could read and learn. In England, William Caxton brought the printing press in 1476.
People also believed in becoming skilled in many things. A true Renaissance person was expected to be good in everything—like writing, music, sports, and speaking well. This idea was shown in a book called The Courtier by Castiglione, which described what a perfect gentleman should be like.
During this period, big changes also happened in religion. A man named Martin Luther from Germany said that people don’t need priests or the Church to connect with God—they just need faith and the Bible. This started the Protestant Reformation. In England, King Henry VIII also broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and made his own church, called the Anglican Church. These religious movements gave people more freedom to think and believe in their own way.
At the same time, Europeans started exploring the world. In 1492, Columbus was trying to find a new route to Asia, but he ended up discovering America. After that, many European countries started traveling to new lands, making colonies, and becoming rich. This age of exploration brought back new ideas, goods, and stories. England also became richer through trade, and this helped writers and artists to grow.
Science also changed a lot. Earlier, people believed that the earth was the center of the universe. But in 1543, Copernicus said that the sun is at the center, and the earth moves around it. This idea changed how people saw the universe. Later, scientists like Kepler, Galileo, and William Harvey used experiments and observation to study the world. A philosopher named René Descartes said that the world works with natural laws, like a machine. This way of thinking became the base of modern science.
But not everything was equal. A scholar named Joan Kelly asked if women also had a Renaissance. She thought that women didn’t gain much during this time, while men enjoyed most of the progress. However, another scholar, Margaret L. King, believed that some women did have more respect and power in society, especially in rich and noble families.
So, the Renaissance was a time when many things changed—how people learned, prayed, discovered the world, and studied nature. It was a time of new beginnings, and it helped shape the world we live in today.
1. What is the Renaissance and why is it called the “rebirth”?
Answer: The Renaissance was a special time in European history that came after the Middle Ages. It started in Italy around the 1300s and spread to other parts of Europe until the 1600s. The word “Renaissance” means “rebirth”, and it is called so because during this period, people showed a new interest in old Greek and Roman learning, culture, and ideas. People started thinking in a new way, with more focus on human life, education, science, and art. Old knowledge was brought back, and people were encouraged to ask questions and use their minds freely. That is why this time is seen as a “rebirth” of learning and thinking.
2. Explain how the invention of the printing press changed society during the Renaissance.
Answer: The printing press was invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century. This invention played a very big role during the Renaissance. Earlier, books were copied by hand and were very costly. Only rich people or religious people could read. But after the printing press, books became cheaper and easily available. People could read in their own languages, not just Latin. This spread education and new ideas to common people. In England, William Caxton started the first printing press in 1476. Now many people became interested in reading, learning, and understanding the world. This created a society that was more curious, educated, and modern.
3. What is Humanism? How did it influence the Renaissance period?
Answer: Humanism was a new way of thinking that started during the Renaissance. Humanists believed in the power and importance of human beings, their mind, their talents, and their life on Earth. Instead of only focusing on religion and the afterlife, humanists studied subjects like history, poetry, art, and moral philosophy. They also read ancient Greek and Roman books and wanted to bring back that old wisdom. Humanism encouraged people to improve themselves, gain knowledge, and develop many talents. It gave birth to the idea of the “Renaissance man”, a person who is good at many things like art, science, sports, and literature. Humanism made people more confident and curious about the world.
4. How did the Renaissance affect religion in Europe?
Answer: During the Renaissance, people began to question the authority of the Church. Earlier, people believed whatever the Church taught. But now, they started reading the Bible themselves and thought about religion in new ways. A German monk named Martin Luther started the Reformation movement. He believed that people could connect to God through faith and reading the Bible, not by going to priests or paying money to the Church. This created a new group called Protestants. In England, King Henry VIII broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and started the Anglican Church. These events reduced the Church’s control and gave people more religious freedom. It was a big change in European history.
5. What were the effects of the Renaissance on science and discovery?
Answer: The Renaissance brought a scientific revolution. Earlier, people believed in old ideas without proof. But now, scientists started using experiments, observations, and logic to understand the world. Copernicus said that the sun is at the center, not the Earth. Later, Kepler, Galileo, and William Harvey made many discoveries. They studied the human body, stars, planets, and natural laws. A philosopher named René Descartes said that the world works like a machine, and everything has a reason. This new thinking made science stronger and became the base for the modern scientific method. The Renaissance helped people trust their own reasoning and opened the door to modern science.
6. Describe the role of exploration and the discovery of the New World during the Renaissance.
Answer: During the Renaissance, many European countries started exploring the world. In 1492, Christopher Columbus tried to find a new way to reach Asia but instead discovered America. After that, many explorers and sailors went to new lands in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. These voyages brought wealth, spices, gold, new foods, and ideas to Europe. England and other countries became powerful through trade and colonization. These new discoveries inspired writers and thinkers to learn more about different cultures. The Renaissance encouraged this spirit of adventure and learning, which helped Europe grow economically and intellectually.
7. What is meant by the term “Renaissance Man”? Give examples.
Answer: A Renaissance Man is a person who is talented in many fields and tries to develop all sides of human ability. This idea came from the Humanist belief that a complete human being should be good in arts, science, literature, sports, and polite manners. For example, Leonardo da Vinci was a painter, scientist, engineer, and writer. He painted the famous Mona Lisa and also designed machines and studied the human body. Another example is Michelangelo, who was a sculptor, painter, and architect. Books like The Courtier described how a noble person should be skilled in many areas. The Renaissance Man showed the human ability to grow and succeed in all directions.
8. How did the Renaissance begin in England, and what was its impact?
Answer: The Renaissance came to England later than Italy, but it became strong during the time of Queen Elizabeth I in the 16th century. England saw a great growth in literature, poetry, theatre, and science. Writers like William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and Sir Philip Sidney became famous. English people started reading more and learning about history, philosophy, and the sciences. The printing press helped spread books and knowledge. The Renaissance made England more modern and powerful, and it led to the Golden Age of English Literature. It also helped prepare the country for the Scientific Revolution and later changes.
9. Did women benefit from the Renaissance? Discuss.
Answer: Some scholars believe that women did not benefit much from the Renaissance. A scholar named Joan Kelly asked the question, “Did women have a Renaissance?” She said that most progress during this time was for men, and women were still expected to stay at home and not get much education or power. However, another scholar, Margaret L. King, believed that some women, especially from rich and noble families, did gain more respect, education, and freedom during this time. For example, women like Queen Elizabeth I and Isabella d’Este were powerful and educated. So, while many women still had limited rights, some did achieve higher positions and contributed to society.
10. Why is the Renaissance considered the beginning of the modern world?
Answer: The Renaissance is considered the beginning of the modern world because it changed how people thought, lived, and learned. Before the Renaissance, people mostly followed religious rules and old traditions. But the Renaissance brought new ideas in science, art, religion, literature, and philosophy. People became more curious and open-minded. They started to believe in human abilities, personal freedom, and education. The invention of the printing press spread knowledge to more people. Scientific discoveries changed how we see the world. Religious reforms gave people freedom of belief. This period broke old barriers and created the base for modern science, democracy, and human rights. That is why it is seen as the start of the modern age.
