Renaissance and Humanism

Renaissance and Humanism

What is Renaissance?

The

Renaissance

(14th

–

mid-17th

century),

which

means

rebirth

and

revival,

is

actually

a

movement stimulated by a series of historical events, such as the religious reformation.

What is Renaissance?

The

renaissance,

therefore,

in

essence,

is

a

historical

period

in

which

the

European

humanist

thinkers and scholars tried to get rid of those old feudalist ideas in medieval Europe,

What is Renaissance?

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

Ch urch(

罗马天主教堂

).

I. The Key Points of Renaissance

Renaissance means ―rebirth‖or ―revival‖.

It is stimulated by a series of historical events, such as religious reformation.

European humanist thinkers and scholars tried to:

1) get rid of the old feudalist ideas;

2) introduce new ideas of the bourgeoisie;

3) recover the purity of the early church.

English Renaissance has 3 periods.

1) 1516

—

1578 : morality play in 1516.

2) 1578

—

1625 : the flowering time,

Elizabethan Period,

the Age of Shakespeare.

3) 1625

—

1660 : declining period

3. English Renaissance is age of poetry and drama.

1)Literary types and the representatives:

(1) drama

→

dramatist:

William Shakespeare

(2) poetry

→

poet: Edmund Spencer

(3) prose:

prose writer: Thomas More

(4) essay

→

essayist: Francis Bacon

2) Spenserian Stanza:

Spenserian Stanza(

斯宾赛诗节

)

It is a verse form created by Edmund Spenser for his poem, The Faerie Queene(

仙

后

).

Each stanza has nine lines, each of the first eight lines is in iambic(

抑扬格

)

penta meter(

五音步诗行

), and the ninth line is an iambic hexameter

（六音步诗行）

line.

The rhythm scheme is abab bcbcc.

4. The theme of English Renaissance:

1. The theme of the English Renaissance is Humanism.

is humanism?

What is humanism?

Humanism refers to the literary culture in the Renaissance.