Transcript The Northern Renaissance

The Northern
Renaissance
Northern Renaissance – Main Points
• More of a blend between old & new worlds =
religious element was stronger than in Italy.
• Christian humanists studied Hebrew and Greek
texts of the Bible to deepen their understanding of
the Bible. The purpose was to restore morality to
the Catholic Church.
• Belgium/Netherlands, Spain, France, Germany &
England.
Factors That Led to The Northern
Renaissance
1.
Economic – Flanders (northern France, Belgium, Netherlands) was
a thriving center of trade for northern Europe.
flourished.
- Cities along the Rhine River (German cities) also
- German banking families
accumulated lots of wealth (Fuggers).
2. Invention of the Printing Press (1455) – Johannes Gutenberg
- 888 The Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist scripture, was the
first dated example of block printing.
- 1041 Bi Sheng in China invented movable clay type
- By 1500, 15-20 million volumes of books produced.
- Printed the Bible
Flanders
Rhine River
Gutenberg and the Printing Press
Northern Renaissance Artists – Jan
van Eyck (1380/90-1441)
Van Eyck – Portrait of Giovanni
Arnolfini and His Wife (1434)
Northern Renaissance Artist – Peter
Paul Rubens (1577-1640)
Northern Renaissance Artists –
Albrecht Durer (1471-1528)
Northern Humanists and Writers
• Stressed education and classical learning to
bring about religious and moral reform.
• Most wrote in Latin / Some began writing
in the vernacular.
Northern Humanists: Desiderius
Erasmus (1466-1536)
• Born in Rotterdam, Holland
• Forced to study in a monastery for 6
years by his guardians.
• Became a priest
• Professor in Paris
• the aim of Erasmus was to introduce a
more rational conception of Christian
doctrine.
• During the Protestant Reformation,
Erasmus found himself between
Church conservatives who blamed him
for inspiring Luther and Luther himself
for being a coward and not joining his
movement.
• First Humanist to earn a living by his
writing.
Erasmus on the Clergy: from In
Praise of Folly (1509)
•
. . . Next to the theologians in happiness are those who commonly call
themselves the religious and monks. Both are complete misnomers, since most
of them stay as far away from religion as possible, and no people are seen more
often in public. They are so detested that it is considered bad luck if one
crosses your path, and yet they are highly pleased with themselves. They
cannot read, and so they consider it the height of piety to have no contact with
literature.... Most of them capitalize on their dirt and poverty by whining for
food from door to door. . . . These smooth fellows simply explain that by their
very filth, ignorance, boorishness, and insolence they enact the lives of the
apostles for us. It is amusing to see how they do everything by rule, almost
mathematically. Any slip is sacrilege. each shoe string must have so many knots
and must be of a certain color. . . . They even condemn each other, these
professors of apostolic charity, making an extraordinary stir if a habit is belted
incorrectly or if its color is a shade too dark. . . . The monks of certain orders
recoil in horror from money, as if it were poison, but not from wine or women.
They take extreme pains, not in order to be like Christ, but to be unlike each
other. Most of them consider one heaven an inadequate reward for their
devotion to ceremony and traditional details. They forget that Christ will
condemn all of this and will call for a reckoning of that which He has
prescribed, namely, charity.
Erasmus on the Clergy: from In
Praise of Folly (1509)
• Perhaps it would be wise to pass over the
theologians in silence. That short-tempered and
supercilious crew is unpleasant to deal with. . . .
They will proclaim me a heretic. With this
thunderbolt they terrify the people they don't like.
Their opinion of themselves is so great that they
behave as if they were already in heaven; they look
down pityingly on other men as so many worms. A
wall of imposing definitions, conclusions,
corollaries, and explicit and implicit propositions
protects them. They are full of big words and
newly-invented terms. . . .
William Shakespeare (1523-1616)
• The English language
owes a great debt to
Shakespeare. He invented
over 1700 of our common
words by changing nouns
into verbs, changing verbs
into adjectives, connecting
words never before used
together, adding prefixes
and suffixes, and devising
words wholly original.
William Shakespeare - Works
Tragedies
• Titus Andronicus first performed in 1594 (printed
in 1594),
Romeo and Juliet 1594-95 (1597),
Hamlet 1600-01 (1603),
Julius Caesar 1600-01 (1623),
Othello 1604-05 (1622),
Antony and Cleopatra 1606-07 (1623),
King Lear 1606 (1608),
Coriolanus 1607-08 (1623), derived from Plutarch
Timon of Athens 1607-08 (1623), and
Macbeth 1611-1612 (1623).
William Shakespeare - Works
Histories
• King Henry VI Part 1 1592 (printed in 1594);
King Henry VI Part 2 1592-93 (1594);
King Henry VI Part 3 1592-93 (1623);
King John 1596-97 (1623);
King Henry IV Part 1 1597-98 (1598);
King Henry IV Part 2 1597-98 (1600);
King Henry V 1598-99 (1600);
Richard II 1600-01 (1597);
Richard III 1601 (1597); and
King Henry VIII 1612-13 (1623)
William Shakespeare - Works
Comedies
Taming of the Shrew first performed 1593-94 (1623),
Comedy of Errors 1594 (1623),
Two Gentlemen of Verona 1594-95 (1623),
Love's Labour's Lost 1594-95 (1598),
Midsummer Night's Dream 1595-96 (1600),
Merchant of Venice 1596-1597 (1600),
Much Ado About Nothing 1598-1599 (1600),
As You Like It 1599-00 (1623),
Merry Wives of Windsor 1600-01 (1602),
Troilus and Cressida 1602 (1609),
Twelfth Night 1602 (1623),
All's Well That Ends Well 1602-03 (1623),
Measure for Measure 1604 (1623),
Pericles, Prince of Tyre 1608-09 (1609),
Tempest (1611),
Cymbeline 1611-12 (1623),
Winter's Tale 1611-12 (1623).