RENAISSANCE

 

Background

 

    The millennium starting from roughly the 5th century B. C., during which European civilization was dominated by the Greeks followed by the Romans, is generally known as the era of classical antiquity. This period exemplifies a significant chapter in the annals of western civilization in that it marked a phase of sustained intellectual and artistic progress. With the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century A. D., this glorious epoch of Greeco-Roman scholarship drew to a close, casting Europe into a lengthy phase of intellectual dearth known as the dark ages. During the dark ages, it was generally supposed that the texts containing the progressive ideas of classical antiquity, were destroyed by the barbarians. This belief however turned out to be fortunately false, for as it emerged later those texts were found to be preserved in the many libraries of the Byzantine empire. Thus, while western Europe was languishing in ignorance all through the dark ages, its eastern counterpart continued to flourish enlivened by the fire of classical learning. This fire however from the 12th century onwards, gradually came under threat as a result of the Byzantine empire being continuously attacked by the troops of the Ottomans. The upshot was that scholars began relocating to various parts of western Europe, with the view to protect their lives and more importantly the precious scores of classical texts they possessed. This naturally meant that the knowledge contained in those works began to steadily permeate throughout Europe, resulting in a dissemination of learning across the continent. By the time the Turks eventually succeeded in capturing Constantinople in 1453, the dissemination had intensified into a full-blown revival or rebirth of interest in Greeco-Roman scholarship throughout Europe. This revival that started roughly during the 13th century in Italy, emerged subsequently into a cultural movement called the renaissance, which radically transformed all aspects of the European way of life. Renaissance thus typifies a movement that salvaged Europe from the ignorance of the dark ages into an epoch of enlightenment, appropriating the ideas and ideals promulgated by the great Greek and Latin thinkers as the guiding beacons.

 

Causes

 

    Though the decline of the Byzantine empire constitutes the most prominent causal factor behind the emergence of the renaissance, it is by no means the only to contend with. In fact, even prior to the Byzantine empire’s decline, the seeds of the renaissance were sowed by the so-called crusades, a series of holy wars fought by the Christians and the Muslims over Jerusalem. The point is, renaissance was triggered by a complex interweave of several factors that encompass a wide array of influential domains, which range from the social to the political to the military. Among the many such, if we are to pick out three of the most telling, then they would invariably be the impact cast by the three most significant breakthroughs at the time namely the invention of the gun powder, the printing press, and the perfection of the Mariner’s compass. Each of these three, brought about a telling transformation that completely altered the entire complexion of Europe.

(I)           The invention of the gun powder altered the social fabric of Europe by undermining the extant system of feudalism, which subsequently led to the rise of monarchy. In the feudal system of administration, the monarch divided the country into many portions and assigned them to the authority of feudal overlords, who were expected to pay taxes in return for the lands they received, and support the crown with arms during times of war. The country was thus ruled by the monarch not directly but through these overlords, who were sworn to allegiance. It is noteworthy that the corner stone of the feudal system was the manor houses in which the overlords lived, which explains why it is also sometimes called the manorial system. The manor houses were not simply houses in which the overlords resided, but their power base that was fashioned along the lines of a citadel. Whenever the feudal overlords came under attack, they could simply lock themselves inside these manor houses, which were provisioned with a standing army and huge stocks of food to last for months, till help could arrive. Attacking these manor houses represented an extremely challenging enterprise, for if the enemy approached them in the hope of scaling the walls and capturing the overlord, the soldiers stationed at the ramparts could put off the attack with relative ease. With the gun powder however, this situation of safety that the overlords enjoyed became compromised. It was now possible to attack the manor houses from a safe distance without having to get too close by shooting at the walls with the aid of a canon. The position of the overlord thus shaken to the core; the system that hinged on his authority also collapsed. In its place, monarchy took over as the dominant form of governance, in which the monarchs themselves directly ruled over the country through troops positioned throughout the kingdom at strategic places.

(II)          The establishment of the printing press also had a telling impact like the gun powder, but in a different way. Before William Caxton set up his prototype printing press in Westminster Abbey, there were no books but only written copies or manuscripts. Manuscripts were generally hard to come by as there were only a handful of them in circulation, and more critically only those with wealth and power could obtain and hope to preserve them. This of course naturally meant that ordinary individuals did not have access to knowledge, which became a monopoly of the elite class. With the printing press however, it became possible to print scores of books that could be subsequently sold in the market, where for a reasonable prize even ordinary individuals could procure them. Courtesy of the printing press, the enlightenment initiated by the renaissance thus evolved into a democratic affair.

(III)         The perfection of the Mariner’s compass, similar to the gun powder and the printing press, also had a revolutionary effect on European thought. It meant that mariners could venture into the seas without any hazard of getting lost in the waters, which ensured trade and commerce flourished like never before. It also enabled European rulers to annex territories beyond their native continent, establish kingdoms they could exploit for resources in faraway lands, and explore the world for new discoveries.

 

 Literary Ramifications

 

    England was one of the last countries to experience the enlightenment brought forth by the renaissance. As a result, the blossoming of literature that the renaissance invariably initiated in the course of its journey through the other nations, occurred relatively late in England. It was in fact not until the accession of Elizabeth I to the English throne that literature really began to flower in the island nation. However, late as this literary flowering was, it nonetheless was quite meteoric in its ascendancy. Some of the founding figures of English literature, who remain timeless men of letters glorified even today for their mastery and craftsmanship, such as Marlowe, Shakespeare, Spenser, Bacon and Milton, lived and wrote during the renaissance. It is notable that the literature fashioned during the English renaissance epitomized some key paradigm shifts, which not only differentiates it from the literature produced previously, but also offers a critical insight into the general change in perception. Of these, three are particularly worth mentioning. The first refers to a change from group or institutional loyalty to an emphasis on individual will and perception, which ushered in an era of free and innovative thinking. The individual was no longer considered as subsidiary in significance to the overall group or society that took precedence previously. Now, the individual became the centre of importance, who was characterized as boundless and autonomous in exercising his potentiality. The second shift signifies a change over from a God or Theo-centered perspective of the world that regarded everything as presided over by an omnipotent divine will, to a human or anthropocentric point of view that placed humanity at the centre of things, giving credence to the primacy of the human will. This of course was largely abetted by the fact that the catholic church which held absolute authority during medieval times, was not just challenged but deprived of its religious absolutism by the many protestant denominations that emerged thanks to the reformation. The third shift marks a transition from a general orientation favouring an ascetic way of life as the ultimate key to salvation, to an aesthetic way of life that endorsed the idea of advancing and appreciating the many worldly phenomena and practices. The world thus was no longer conceived as a purgatory where subjects are expected to lead a disciplined life to prepare themselves for the life after death, but as the only reality there is and therefore to be fully experienced. Though this often resulted in individuals indulging in excesses and giving in to unsavory practices, it also nurtured the progress of the arts and sciences to a hitherto unprecedented extent.