Renaissance Humanism

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Renaissance Humanism
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What is Renaissance Humanism?

• This age, like a golden age, has restored to
  light the liberal arts that were almost extinct.
  Ficino
• Since in our age we see letters restored to
  life, what prevents us from seeing among us a new
  Demosthenes, Plato, Thucydides, Cicero? Budé
• Good literature has been restored unto its
  former light and dignity, and with such amendment
  and increase of knowledge, that now hardly should
  I be admitted unto the first form of the little
  grammar-school boysI see robbers, hangmen,
  freebooters, tapsters, ostlers, and such like, of
  the very rubbish of the people, more learned now
  than the doctors and preachers in my time.
  Rabelais

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Oration on the Dignity of Man
We have made thee neither of heaven nor of
earth, neither mortal nor immortal, so that with
freedom of choice and with honor, as though the
maker and molder of thyself, thou mayest fashion
thyself in whatever shape thou shalt prefer.
Pico della Mirandola
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Renaissance/Humanism
From the fifteenth century until the mid
seventeenth century Discovery and rebirth of
learning after the barbarism of the middle
ages Renewed interest in Greek and Roman
literature Humanism a program of study
distinguished from theology and sciences Studia
humanitatis grammar, rhetoric, history, literary
studies and moral philosophy Humanism was the
education of man as man in the things that
differentiate him from all other animals
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Classicism in the Middle Ages and Renaissance

• Renaissance Humanists want to return to origins
  and investigate the authenticity of texts.
• They have perspective they historicize,
  contextualize.
• Medievals considered the ancients out of time.
• Humanists noted that the medievals were ignorant
  of genuine texts. They possessed translations of
  translations.

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Petrarch Cicero
Important for his sonnet sequence to
Laura Undertook important discovery and
translation of Cicero. His translation of Brutus
became a standard text in the rhetoric
curriculum. Cicero was the most important author
of the classical period for Humanists. The things
Cicero represented, eloquence, the combination of
eloquence with wisdom, and service to the public
good and the state, became foundations of the
humanist educational curriculum.
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The Role of Man
Humanism wasnt just a program of learning in and
of itself, but learning to create better
individuals, better men. Humanism returns to man
agency that he lost over the course of the middle
ages, whether because of religious authority, the
power of the Church, or feudal positioning.
Humanists sought to put the power, real and
potential of man at the center. They claim a new
position in the world for man. Humanists believed
in mans power to plan his life in the world, to
command his destiny.
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Humanism and Reform
Martin Luther and the 95 Theses Salvation
depended upon destroying the conspiracy and
enabling all of the people to regain direct
access to the word of God by means of vernacular
translations of the Bible. Sola scriptura sola
fide Only the scriptures and only
faith Protestant Reformation was an attempt to
bring Christianity back to its sources, to attach
faith directly to the Bible. The printing press
and the dissemination of texts
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Literary Production

• Poetry style, genre, convention, and invention
• Epic Classical models Homer and Virgil
• Romance narrative poetry, tales of wandering
  knights, their spiritual and worldly
  shortcomings.
• Drama rediscovery of classical plays, Greek and
  Roman

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The Book of the Courtier
Castiglione was a count and a diplomat and his
book is not really about literature or
philosophy. It takes the form of a debate over
the ideal behavior of aristocratic men and women
across a variety of situations and subjects,
including love. It is an advice book detailing
the proper behavior at court, the way to succeed
and the pitfalls to avoid. The ideal man is a
uomo universale, a person expert in a wide
variety of knowledge and skills most important
is an ease in situations, knowledge, love, and
skills Castiglione termed this sprezzatura,
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The Prince

• Machiavelli separates political theory from
  ethics.
• Politics is about only one thing getting and
  keeping power.
• The only skill that matters is calculation.
• Machiavelli refuses to allow ethical judgment in
  political theory.

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Essays

• What do I know?
• His essays showed the common weaknesses of men to
  make them aware of the possibility that other
  people might be right and they, themselves, could
  be wrong.

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Humanism in England

• Humanism in letters and in art (More Sidney)
• Henry VIII and Reformation in England
• 1534 Act of Supremacy the King is the Supreme
  Head of the Church in England
• 1535 More beheaded

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Utopia
Written in 1515 in Latin, not published in
English until after Mores death. Utopia
nowhere and dystopia A new world or the
possibility of how his world can be
transformed? A paradise of equality or militant
suppression of individuality?
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