Salient Feature of Renaissance

Contents
1.Abstract
2.Introduction
3.Discussion
4.Conclusion
5.Bibliography

1.Abstract:-This paper deals with the idea of renaissance and its salient features .
2.Introduction: The Renaissance in English literature propelled poetry and
theatrical drama to new heights. The Renaissance is a French word which
means re-birth, revival or re-awakening. The Renaissance was both a
revival of ancient classical mythology, literature and culture as well as a re-
awakening of the human mind, after the long sleep of the dark Middle Ages,
to the wonder, the glory and the beauty of the human body and the world of
nature. “It was a re-discovery by mankind of himself and of the world.” In the
words of the M.H. Abrahams Renaissance is “the birth of the modern world
out of the ashes of the dark ages.” Renaissance began with the fall of the
Constantinople in 1453. Mohamad-II, the sultan of the Ottoman Turks and a
crusader defeated the Christians in 1453 and occupied Constantinople. It
was the capital of Byzantine Empire and the center of classical learning.
The scholars of ancient learning fled away to Italy and different other
countries with their books and knowledge. They tried to spread their
knowledge there. This revival of the classical knowledge is called
Renaissance. Its salient features are– curiosity about more knowledge,
desire for unlimited wealth and power, love of adventures, own country,
beauty, humanism and the past.
Discussion:- The Renaissance was termed as the beginning of an ambitious
stage of European sociological, aesthetic, administrative and industrial
“rebirth” which followed the Middle Ages. Rennaisance was known for
stating from the 14th century to the 17th century, who encouraged the
rediscovery of ancient conception, literature, and philosophy.
Rebirth and rediscovery
Though historians debate the precise origins of the Renaissance, most agree that it – or one version of it – began in
Italy some time in the late 1300s, with the decline in influence of Roman Catholic Christian doctrine and the
reawakening of interest in Greek and Latin texts by philosophers such as Aristotle, Cicero and Seneca, historians
including Plutarch and poets such as Ovid and Virgil. One spur was the fall of Constantinople (Istanbul) to the
Turks in 1453, which encouraged many scholars to flee to Italy, bringing printed books and manuscripts with them.
The extraordinary flowering in visual art that occurred in the great Italian city states of Florence and Venice in the
early 16th century, including artists such as Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael, was another.
Yet another was Johann Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press around 1440, which enabled books to be mass-
produced in the Western world for the first time. Aided by a quickly shifting political landscape, and an increase
in trade and economic activity, these new ways of thinking began to spread northwards across Europe. The fact that
it was a transnational movement, which came to touch every country in Europe, is one of the most crucial things
about the Renaissance.

Humanism
Education was a driving force, encouraged by the increase in the number of universities and schools – another
movement that began in Italy. Gradually, the concept of a ‘humanistic’ curriculum began to solidify: focussing not on
Christian theological texts, which had been pored over in medieval seats of learning, but on classical ‘humanities’
subjects such as philosophy, history, drama and poetry. Schoolboys – few girls were permitted to receive an
education at this point – were drilled in Latin and Greek, meaning that texts from the ancient world could be studied
in the original languages. Printed textbooks and primers enabled students to memorise snippets from quotable
authors, sharpen their use of argumentative rhetoric and develop an elegant writing style – one textbook by the
Dutch humanist educator Desiderius Erasmus from 1512 famously includes several hundred ways to say ‘thank you
for your letter’. In Britain, humanism was spread by a rapid increase in the number of ‘grammar’ schools (as their
name indicates, language was their primary focus, and students were often required to speak in Latin during school
hours), and the jump in the number of children exposed to the best classical
learning. Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser, Jonson, Bacon: almost every major British Renaissance intellectual one
can name received a humanist education. Shakespeare’s plays and poems are steeped in writers he encountered at
school – the magical transformations of Ovid’s poetry infiltrate the worlds of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The
Tempest, his Roman histories are cribbed from the Greek historian Plutarch, The Comedy of Errors is modelled
closely on a Greek drama by Plautus, while Hamlet includes an entire section – the Player’s account of the death of
Priam – borrowed from Virgil’s Aeneid.

The Reformation
But humanism produced a strange paradox: European society was still overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, yet the
writers and thinkers now in vogue came from classical, pre-Christian times. The clash was made more obvious in
1517, when a renegade German friar called Martin Luther, appalled by corruption in the Church, launched a protest
movement against Catholic teachings. Luther argued that the Church had too much power and needed to be
reformed, and promoted a theology that stressed a more direct relationship between believers and God.

Another central plank of his thinking was that the Bible should be available not just in Latin, spoken by the elite, but
democratically available in local languages. Luther published a German translation of the Bible in 1534, which –
assisted by the growth of the printing press – helped bring about translations into English, French and other
languages. In turn, this increased literacy rates, meaning that more people had access to education and new
thinking. But the political consequences for Europe were violent, as war raged and Protestant and Catholic nations
and citizens vied for control.

The spirit of Individualism and Materialism:

The Renaissance was, in essence, an intellectual rebirth. It showed itself in the effort of the individual
to free himself from the rigid institutions of the Middle Ages, feudalism and the church; and to assert
his right to live, to think and to express himself in accordance with a more flexible secular code. And
thus the Renaissance gave birth to individualism and worldliness. The Renaissance freed the minds
of men from the shackles of medievalism. The process started during the age of Chaucer, and it
reached its consummation in the Elizabethan period. The medieval mind is other worldly, it
subordinates this life to the life after death, and in the interests of the soul shuns all enjoyments of the
flesh. Asceticism is its ideal and any physical indulgence is looked down upon as a negation of the
ideal. The Renaissance spirit is marked, on the other hand, with a growing sense of beauty and an
increasing enrichment of life. The Elizabethan age was therefore an age of Materialism and frank and
bold enjoyment of life. Beauty was a passion with the Elizabethans and women were regarded as
adorable creatures. England’s trade and commerce flourished and the country grew rich and
prosperous.

4.Conclusion:-