LECTURE 1

THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING (1400-1550)

BY ASHER ASHKAR GOHAR
 Preliminary Summary of the Period

 This transition period is, firstly, one of decline from the Age of Chaucer
 Nonetheless, it is also an intellectual preparation for the Age of Elizabeth, which was only possible through a
radicle shift from the old mindset to the new one.
 For a century and a half after Geoffrey Chaucer not a single great English work appeared, and the general
standard of literature was very low. This was due to three main diversions:
1. The Hundred Years War (1337-1453) deviated the mind of the nation away from literary creativity and
imagination. The war also brought majority of the nobles under its desolation, of whom most were patrons to
the men of letters in those days. “The bloody Wars of the Roses (1455-1485) are names to show how the
energy of England was violently destroying itself, like a great engine that has lost its balance wheel.” (W.J.
Long)
2. Cade's Rebellion (1450) – an uprising against the policies of Henry VI, led by, not surprisingly, Jack Cade. The
majority of the participants were peasants and small landowners from Kent, who objected to forced labour,
corrupt courts, the seizure of land by nobles, the loss of royal lands in France, and heavy taxation.
3. The Black Death/Plague (1347-1353) – an epidemic of bubonic plague, a disease caused by the bacterium
Yersinia pestis that circulates among wild rodents. The plague killed an estimated 25 million people, almost a
third of the continent's population.
 THE PRINTING PRESS

 While England during this period was in constant social and political strife, yet rising slowly to
heights of national greatness, intellectually it moved forward with incomprehensible speediness.
 Printing was brought to England by William Caxton (c. 1476), and for the first time in history it was
possible for a book or an idea to reach the whole nation.
 William Caxton (c. 1422 – c. 1491) was an English merchant, diplomat, and writer. He is thought
to be the first person to introduce a printing press into England in 1476.
 And because he was a printer, therefore, he was also the first English retailer of printed books.
 His most notable work is Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye or Recueil des Histoires de Troye (1464)
– a translation by William Caxton of a French courtly romance written by Raoul Lefèvre,
chaplain to Philip III, Duke of Burgundy. Additionally, this was the first book printed in the English
language.
 RETURN OF THE CLASSICAL EXPERIENCE

 Religious sentiment was slowly losing

 Schools and universities were established in place of the old monasteries.
 Greek ideas and Greek culture came to England in the Renaissance. This can be observed later
on in the Elizabethan Age, when almost the entire dramatic scene was reflective of the ancient
Greek and Roman inspirations
 Man's spiritual freedom was proclaimed in the Reformation (1517 – 1648) – the political,
intellectual and cultural upheaval that disintegrated Catholic Europe, setting in place the
structures and beliefs that would define the continent in the modern era.
 The Middle Ages man's whole world consisted of the narrow Mediterranean and the nations
that clustered about it. This was due to the limited exposure of the people to the world outside
the Continent (Europe). It was through their acquaintance with the classical literature (mainly
echoed in the Roman and Greek explorations of the past) that brought them to a whole new
world waiting to be explored.
 POLITICAL COMMOTION

 The frightful reign of Richard III (reigned 1483 – 1485), which marked the end of the series of civil
wars within the country and the self-destruction of feudalism, and made possible a new growth of
English national sentiment under the popular Tudors.
 The House of Tudor was an English royal house of Welsh origin, descended from the Tudors of
Penmynydd. (From purely a literary point of view, the history of the houses is not so important.
However, certain individuals stand out in significance due to their direct influence on literature of
the age).
 Henry VII (1457-1509) (Reign: 22 August 1485 – 21 April 1509) was the King of England and Lord of
Ireland from his seizure of the crown on 22 August 1485 to his death.
 He was the first monarch of the House of Tudor. first let Europe feel the might of the new national
spirit.
 To divert that growing and unruly spirit from rebellion at home, Henry led his army abroad, in the
apparently impossible attempt to gain for himself three things: a French wife; a French revenue;
and the French crown itself.
 POLITICAL COMMOTION (CONT.)

 Henry VII attained the throne when his forces defeated King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field, the
culmination of the Wars of the Roses (1455-1485).
 Waged between 1455 and 1485, the Wars of the Roses earned its flowery name because the white rose
was the badge of the House of York, and the red rose was the badge of the Lancaster. After 30 years of
political manipulation, horrific carnage and brief periods of peace, the wars ended and a new royal
dynasty emerged.
 As Richard’s right to the throne became tenuous, the Lancastrian Henry Tudor—with the help of France
and many nobles—staked his claim to the crown. He met Richard on the battlefield at Bosworth on
August 22, 1485.
 After fighting valiantly, Richard III was killed. Legend has it that his crown was placed on Henry’s head at
the very spot where Richard fell. Henry was declared King as Henry VII.
 After his official coronation, Henry married Elizabeth of York to reconcile the long-feuding Lancaster and
York houses. This union ended the Wars of the Roses and gave rise to the Tudor Dynasty.
 LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD

 As said earlier, for students of literature learning history of the period is crucial, not for sake of history itself but
its influence upon the changing environment that leads to a shift in the thought process. Thus, the historical
upheaval discussed previously should be treated as an impetus that brings for the literature of the age.
 The great names of the period are numerous and significant, but literature is strangely silent.
 Probably the very turmoil of the age prevented any literary development, for literature demands peace to
thrive; it requires musing rather than commotion, and the stirring life of the Renaissance had first to be lived
before it could express itself in the new literature of the following Elizabethan period.
 Two substantial ideas influence the period ideologically more than anything else: Renaissance and
Humanism
 The term Renaissance, though used by many writers "to denote the whole transition from the Middle Ages to
the modern world," is more correctly applied to the revival of art resulting from the discovery and imitation of
classic models in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
 Humanism applies to the revival of classic literature, and was so called by its leaders, following the example
of Petrarch, because they held that the study of the classics, literae Humaniores i.e. the "more human
writings," rather than the old theology, was the best means of promoting the largest human interests.
 LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD (CONT.)

 The two greatest and most significant books which appeared in England during this period are undoubtedly
Desiderius Erasmus’ The Praise of Folly (Encomium Moriae) and Thomas More's Utopia, the famous "Kingdom
of Nowhere.“
 Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1467?–1536) was not a systematic philosopher who often reflected on
subjects that invite philosophical inquiry:
 the influence of nature versus nurture;
 the relationship between word and thing;
 the ideal form of government;
 the nature of faith; and
 the theory of knowledge.
 Erasmus’ The Praise of Folly is like a song of victory for the New Learning, which had driven away vice,
ignorance, and superstition, the three foes of humanity.
 It was published in 1511 after the accession of Henry VIII. Folly is represented as donning cap and bells and
mounting a pulpit, where the vice and cruelty of kings, the selfishness and ignorance of the clergy, and the
foolish standards of education are satirized without mercy.
 LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD (CONT.)

 Thomas More (1478–1535) was an English lawyer, humanist, statesman, and Catholic martyr, whose
paradoxical life is reflected in his contrasting titles: he was knighted by King Henry VIII in 1521 and
canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1935.
 He was representative of the lively intellectual culture which had evolved in fifteenth century London
and which provided a platform for the early manifestations of humanism.
 More's outlook was shaped by his legal role in the affairs of the city, then by far the largest in England
with a population of about 50,000, and it was as a representative of city interests that he was first
drawn into service of the Crown.
 This involvement with London's civic life also played its part in the conception of Utopia, his best known
work, completed in 1516.
 While More cannot be classified in any formal sense as a philosopher, it is in his writings in defense of
humanism and in Utopia that he can best be seen as an exponent of ideas.
 LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD (CONT.)

 Thomas More’s Utopia is a powerful and original study of social conditions, unlike anything which had
ever appeared in any literature.
 More learns from a sailor, one of Amerigo Vespucci's companions, of a wonderful Kingdom of
Nowhere, in which all questions of labor, government, society, and religion have been easily settled
by simple justice and common sense.
 In this Utopia we find for the first time, as the foundations of civilized society, the three great words,
Liberty, Fraternity, Equality, which retained their inspiration through all the violence of the French
Revolution and which are still the unrealized ideal of every free government.
 As he hears of this wonderful country More wonders why, after fifteen centuries of Christianity, his own
land is so little civilized; and as we read the book to-day we ask ourselves the same question.
 This also shows us the insecurity and consequent disillusionment with religious ideality was gradually
surfacing in the literature.
To be continued in Lecture 2.
Thank you!