THE BRITISH RENAISSANCE IN LITERATURE: HUMANISM, LANGUAGE, AND THE REBIRTH OF EXPRESSION
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18623/rvd.v23.n4.4917Keywords:
British Renaissance, Humanism, Reformation, Shakespeare, Spenser, Early Modern LiteratureAbstract
The British Renaissance is one of the most significant shifts in the history of European intellect and aesthetics, but in terms of both origin and manifestation, it also betrays some significant differences from other Renaissances. Originating in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, it entailed the recovery of classical learning in combination with the theological and political upheavals of the Reformation. This paper will contend that the British Renaissance in literature had instilled in it the concept of language-as-self-fashioning, with such works of the period, ranging from the moral humanism of Thomas More to the rhetorical effusiveness of Shakespeare, entailing not the imitation of European humanist ideals but rather their translation into the language itself, with language becoming the agent of intellectual and spiritual change. This paper traces the convergence of classical rhetorical traditions, Protestant theology, and the formation of British identity in the creation of new literary forms and modes of conscious awareness in representative authors such as More, Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe, and Shakespeare. From historical narrative to linguistic analysis, the discussion builds to a conclusion concerning Shakespeare, the ultimate product of Renaissance humanist experimentation. The British Renaissance, in effect, engendered the creation of a view of literature not just dedicated to imitation (mimesis) but rather to ‘’creative knowledge’’, or the art of describing the complexities of human freedom and moral responsibility.
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