just for fun

The sixteenth century(1485-1603

 文藝復興時期文學

The state of English language

beginning of the sixteenth century:

English had no prestige abroad, and was regarded as not suitable for serious, elevated, elegant discourses.

→At the end of the sixteenth century:

increase in linguistic self-confidence, spectacular creativity of a succession of brilliant writers.

War of rose and the Tudors

l   The struggle between the noble houses of York (white rose) and Lancaster (red rose) for over 30 years→establishment of the Tudor dynasty

Richmond

l   Owen Tudor married Catherine of Valois, widow of the Lancastrian king Henry V.

l   Owen's grandson , the earl of Richmond, become of the first of Tudor monarch, and he defeated the reigning Yorkist king, Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field.

大致年表

l   Tudor: nation-state(imagined community)

     sovereignty中央集權

     state→nobility諸侯列強

l   Richmond was crowned King Henry VII in 1485

→Richmond married Elizabeth of York, consolidating his claim to crown, effectively uniting the two political rivals and concentrating the political power upon the crown. .

→Henry VIII (1491-1547)

→Edward

→Mary

→Elizabeth (1533-1603)

The court

l   The center of power and culture

l   Court fashions in dress and speech; court tastes in painting, music and poetry all shape the taste and the imagination of the country as a whole.

Royal proximity

l   Royal proximity is a route to power but also harbors danger

l   Tudor courtiers’ need to protect themselves and display themselves

l   The art of gaining and keeping power

--Machiavelli, The Prince

l   The art of displaying oneself
--Castiglione, The Courtier

l   Courtiers became highly practiced at crafting and deciphering graceful words with double or triple meanings.

l   Impact upon poetic creation

Literacy

l   Literacy is increased in the sixteenth century when Protestantism encouraged a direct encounter with the Bible.( Moveable metal type)

Renaissance Humanism

l   The Renaissance→Humanism()

l   A rebirth of letters and arts stimulated by the recovery of texts and artifacts from classical antiquity.( linear perspective, new aesthetic practices, New ideas)

l   Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers were valued.

l   The submission of the human spirit to penitential discipline gave way to unleashed curiosity, individual self-assertion, and a powerful conviction that man was the measure of all things.

English Humanism

l   In England, a greater interest in humanism education

l   Education as a preparation for public service, not for training for the church

l   The acquisition of “literature”—literacy and cultural knowledge—the focus of education

Trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric)

Quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music

l   The core of the curriculum—the study of Latin, the language of diplomacy, of the professions, and of all higher learning

Two Impulses

l   Humanist reverence for the classics and English pride in the vernacular (Throughout Europe nationalism and the expansion of the reading public were steadily )strengthening the power and allure of the vernacular.

l   The emergent sense of national identity.

Reformation488-495

l   Ideological and institutional tensions in English religious life.

Catholicism:

--bread and wine, body and blood of God

--A system of confession, pardons, penance, absolution, sacred relics and ceremonies

--male clerical hierarchy’s ruling power over the illiterate flock.

l   The discussion of the Bible is conducted in Latin

l   Religious doctrines were mediated to the commoners by the priests.

Martin Luther(November 1517)

Private conscience enlightened by a personal reading of the Bible

Direct access to the word of God by means of vernacular translations of the Bible. “Only the Scripture”

Henry VIII

Separation from the Church of Rome

The head of the Church of England

Fluctuation between Catholicism and Protestantism: Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth

A Female Monarch in a Male World

Body natural, Body politic, The Cult of love

Patronage system

l   Poetry circulated in manuscript, copied by reader after reader into personal anthologies, or reproduced by professional scribes for a fee.

l   For writers of exalted social standing, poetry was an indispensable social grace and an exalted form of play.

l   Writers of lower ranks needed to seek patronage from noble houses.

Tudor Style

l   Ornament, plainness, and wonder

l   Literary figurers

l   Elaborate ornament in language, as in clothing, Jewelry, and furniture.

l   Elizabethan taste for elaborate, intricate perfectly regular designs.

l   polished culture精緻文化, countiers culture朝臣文化

l   利用masque來演戲傳遞訊息

l   Symmetry and proportion

l   The design of an art work is linked to the design of the cosmos.

Literary Modes

Pastoral, epic, lyric, satiric, elegiac, tragic and comic

Sonnet, verse epistle, epigram, funeral elegy, masque, etc.

key word

1.何謂宗教改革

2.humanist education:全才仿古

3.religon in文復: logic, reason, well education 調和