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Renaissance and New Learning Luca Manoni 3°E :pen: (The Chain of…
Renaissance and New Learning
Luca Manoni 3°E :pen:
The Chain of Being
The Tudors represented the universe as a big chain of being, with a fixed hierarchy made of different and
unchangeable ranks. Outside, there was only chaos.
Man was a unique being, with a body (like lower creations) and a spirit (like higher creations) so he kept all
the levels of the chain together.
The hierarchy in the chain of being:
God
Angels
Human beings
Animals
Plants
The inanimate world
Everything in the chain was connected, so if something affected one thing, it had also effects on the other
levels (= there was correspondence).
The universe (macrocosm), the human body (microcosm) and the kingdom (body politic) corresponded to
each other. Just as God governed the universe, the king or queen governed the kingdom.
Humanism
The individual was now considered the maker of his own destiny (before everything was considered to be
in the hands of God).
In literature, Humanism (or New Learning) was the greatest influence. The term derived from Latin (studia humanitatis; Erasmus of Rotterdam, a Dutch scholar, underlined the importance of Latin and Greek), and it was based on:
the concept that man could develop through knowledge;
the importance of reason to interpret man and nature;
the concept of literature as a specific instrument of reason;
modern English (not only Latin) as a literary medium.
English Renaissance was a time of discovery and exploration, and new theories revolutionised the worldCopernicus created a heliocentric model of the solar system where the sun had the central place (unlike in the Ptolemaic system, where the Earth had it).
The English Renaissance
Renaissance in Britain developer later than elsewhere. Even if Italian Renaissance (which was identified by
England with Rome and the Pope) had a huge influence, English Renaissance had its specific features:
it had a Protestant/Puritan basis (the Puritans were English Protestants who wanted to "purify" the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices)
English literature had less to do with visual arts than the Italian one.
