Videos

The Renaissance

Added Aug 15, 2015 •

Copy this URL:
Embed code:	<iframe class="edlio-embed-player" type="text/html" width="640" height="360" src="//www.bmhs-la.org/apps/embed/?v=84987" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Change dimensions

You know... the arts flourish and stuff.

Show Transcript

welcome to the next installment of British literary history English Renaissance  the dating for this. It's different every not every single book but different in a lot of books keep in mind that any. Is arbitrarily dated and structured by Scholars no one woke up in 1485 and was like what's the Renaissance  Sears ad for you this time are 1485 1622 things going on around the world during this. the Renaissance started in Italy in the 1300 head eventually reach England in I have the 1500 what I was talking about 1400 Renaissance means rebirth this rebirth usually refers to the rebirth of culture and I just want to point out that this is a bit full of itself someone during the Renaissance the Renaissance the Renaissance what's the Dark Ages which Chaucer so I think we should be aware of if we all decided that now we're in the. Of Awesome okay when I study history I usually associate picture ideas with time periods kind of help me remember what's important about the time. I want you to associate with the Renaissance is Rebirth of classic culture so classical culture is our friend things from ancient Greece and Rome and both of those are often considered the heights of current politics velocity so we had great thinkers like Sophocles playwright Aristotle Plato and so during the Renaissance and during quite a few other people look back and idolized ancient Greek and ancient Roman thought so play out references to mythology in a lot of Renaissance works so this famous someone whose name starts with a B soda challenge by someone and they're also velocity of ancient Greek and Roman culture send an influence in columns and things like that  so the way that we see Greek and Roman thoughts influence on the fat and the Renaissance is really with this idea of humanism secular interesting human concerns and values so first you want to point out that secular doesn't mean you're religious it's just and humanists particularly during the Renaissance often grounded this idea that each person is a microcosmus each person is made in the image and likeness of God and and us is capable of so many things and capable of influencing and shaping the world and paws so  it's this idea that in sharp contrast the medieval period where it was like ignore things of this world have contempt for things of this world because we just have to look at the afterlife humanism says let's work I'm fixing this world to do stuff here let's build a better Society subject area some colleges have Humanities as a major and it can include literature or relationships making philosophy are Classical Languages history politics some Humanity mathematics  and so the idea that someone could become of renaissance man which now refers to a really multi-talented person is really grounded in the Renaissance view of Education to be educated in the Renaissance you should thorough understanding of the humanities of all those different subjects I'm you go to college and have a major in that make sure you might even have an emphasis and you're just going to learn about one thing  really really during the Renaissance they were supposed to know how to all those things really really long can talk a little bit more about humanism because it offers a really sharp pain.  Remember that during the medieval. They focused exclusively on God in the and they're looking for the afterlife in heaven individuals  sought answers from authority figures so they looked to the church to tell them how to live their life or to their feudal Lord to tell them what to do see her reflection morality plays that give you allegories about morals and Miracle plays plays and whatnot this changes a lot in the Renaissance so it looks at individual capabilities of each person so if we think about and obviously think she is not during the English Renaissance his art looked at the human form so that paint sketch is studying people actually look like which is a contrast medieval art which kind of two-dimensional icons for people AC happened in the art World also happens in literature it's reflecting greater thought where the individual conscience can be so I can decide what's right for me I can decide what's morally right I don't have to go ask the priest what I should do I'm capable as someone made in the image and likeness of God to do that myself so this more ended focus on that individual struggle is reflected in the Renaissance Theater Wedgewood feature histories tragedies comedies things that dealt with humans on Earth issues of jealousy and fishing salvation here and in the afterlife so fast at one point is like it's clear I'm going to hell so he's still thinking about but he's also am I going to keep my power how am I going to get power so very much stop this social Mobility to review the first was humanism that's doesn't mean that there was this huge Marxist Revolution during the Renaissance or anything like that things were still extremely hierarchical but it was an improvement from the very very structured and confining feudal system your children in the slight chance becoming someone who was able to screw education perhaps now you have to be in a position where you could get an education and so but courtiers for instance people that really studied the humanities could advise the king and Shakespeare Sparrow Shakespeare's father was a farmer  if it were an evil. Expectation would be that and Shakespeare Shakespeare skilled trade and three Artisan also are in the position as bailiff of his community and then literary culture reflects these dramatic changes of the time so because there's a focus on the individual and the now that's reflected in literature the printing press printed the Bible on that allowed more people to read and this access to redeem as Gaston so derisively says in that quote over there basically the biggest revolution of this time was during the Renaissance the Anglican Church develops  previously Martin Luther not in England nailed his 95 Theses to the cathedral door he was concerned that the Catholic Church is this corrupt for selling indulgences and had problems and that and he and Powerless he thought that religion was an so you don't  you don't need people to tell you what God says and that is because now people have access to the Bible you can read the Bible yourself because  Happy Valley standard and so if I can hold read it myself so this in some ways division of the church and then Scott Calvin for God's going to heaven and who is not and that's going to be influential for the Puritans later  so then there's to radiate this isn't England so Martin Luther and John Calvin the stuff happening in Europe influencing things then in England Henry the 8th Catholicism he wants to know his marriage with Catherine the popo give it to him and so he's like fine I'll for my own church and so he starts the Church of England or the Anglican Church makes himself a temperature so that he could have this annulment so that he could marry someone else in the hopes of getting a male heir and Sir Thomas More wrote Utopia and was one of his advisors refuse to sign almost walked in the house London for quite some time and eventually beheaded and so he a martyr  not recognizing Henry the 8th as head of the church and Tammy use a little bit on the politics of the Tudor dynasty so the begins with the War of the Roses and Henry the 7th and then we get Henry the 8th starts the Church of England his son he was sickly and young was Protestant like his father and the Book of common prayer he died and Mary who was Henry's first daughter with Catherine Pittsburgh wife took power and she was halfway she was Bloody Mary because she tortured and killed Protestants and then after her Elizabeth came into power and she was Protestant and  Shirley Knight and then she had a new Harrison's eventually Stewart so wondering if I wanted to show you this because it's very tumultuous. between that and Catholicism religion  was that Hot Topic during the time Queen Elizabeth was a very influential monarch for our purposes is English she's really important she was a patron of the Arts she knew classical and modern languages she wrote poetries she also created this court courtiers were writers and artists she filled her port with skills Renaissance artist she was known as the Virgin Queen uninteresting propaganda move it was cool for to raise first off as a woman if she married she would have lost a lot of power to her husband marry you I just have to think about it and but the other really powerful part of the taking on this idea of the Virgin Queen call there something because the Protestant religion doesn't have the same idealization of Mary adulation adoration Adoration of Mary as Catholicism virgin hole in everyone's heart like they needed a virgin mother figure ends Queen Elizabeth like I will be that and so you're taking the name Virgin Queen allowed her to establish this very emotional connection with her subjects  serene TV has the destruction of the Spanish Armada but it made England kind of Naval power during the period because they beat Spain of the British Empire a developments during the. The two most important things are the sonnet which we'll talk about a lot it's a 14 Line lyric but the Define structure silence follow very set rules it's an iambic pentameter  rhyme scheme different types of Sonic means that it's highly musical verse expressing emotion sonnets were traditionally love poems it's imported from the Italian Renaissance the most famous Italian sonnet writer is Petra  blank verse which is unrhymed verse in iambic pentameter previously theater for instance there would be set Rhythm and rhyme and now some plays most plays were written in blank verse so Blake first was supposed to Echo normal conversation the weight of the stresses went I am afraid it's been stressful unstressed syllable toward the end of the PC John Donne most famous metaphysical poet if you look up metaphysical poet's in the dictionary probably if you hold metaphysical poets Johnson metaphysical poetry meta means Beyond and physical needs physical so it's going to be on to look at spiritual matters the essence of reality it is a reaction against Renaissance literature so Renaissance literature  for much of the Renaissance is very Barney and beautiful lyrical like it sounded nice mom and Todd the idealized love poetry that you know continuing from the medieval. we don't want to deal with just that fluffy pretty stuff want to deal with serious matters we want to question what it means to live science  really analyze and think about these things which is very Renaissance humanism consider what it means to be human want to consider what our role is so stylistic metaphysical poets so they're not going to do the like lovey dovey fluffy stuff they're going to have an intellectual if they're talking that it's not going to be  mom the normal elegiac o death lost it's going to be what does it mean to die how does it impact the community what does it mean such profound  trees on these lot of paradoxes of paradoxes you can contradictory statement that explode and still seem necessary because they're going beyond the obvious beyond the physical and so the truth so  deep and hard to see that it can only be expressed with a paradox they also used to which are extended metaphors  something so they might have an entire poem that's just got even one thing as if it were another sort of analogy so that they can further analyze things  alright that's the end the Renaissance video and here is my horrible joke why did Queen Elizabeth the first Bynum to prepare for a long reign

Uploaded by Melissa Rhoades-Rudder '01.

Videos

The Renaissance

More videos from Melissa Rhoades-Rudder '01