2.5.The English Renaiance_文艺复兴对英语的影响

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2.5.The English Renaiance

The English Renaiance The Renaiance in EuropeThe English Renaiance Comparison of the English and Italian RenaiancesThe Renaiance in Europe From the fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries, medieval attitudes and institutions broke down, and distinctly modern cultural, economic, and political forms emerged.For many historians, the Renaiance marks the starting point of the modernera.The Renaiance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe.The Renaiance began in the middle of the fourteenth century in the northern Italian city-states, Florence in particular, which had grown prosperous from the revival of the trade in the Middle Ages.Italian merchants and bankers had the wealth to acquire libraries and fine works of art and to support art, and literature.In the late fifteenth and the sixteenth century, Renaiance ideas spread to Germany, France, Spain, and England through books available in great numbers due to the invention of the printing pre.The Renaiance was characterized by a rebirth of interest in the humanist culture and outlook of ancient Greece and Rome.By studying the humanities—history, literature, rhetoric, moral and political philosophy, humanists aimed to revive the worldly spirits of the ancient Greeks and Romans, which they believed had been lost in the Middle Ages.Humanists were thus fascinated by the writings of the ancients.To the humanists, the ancients had written brilliantly, in an incomparable literary style.Although Renaiance did not repudiate否定，与…断绝关系 Christianity, they valued worldly activities and interests to a much greater degree than the people of the Middle Ages, whose outlook was dominated by Christian otherworldline来世.Renaiance individuals were fascinated by this world;they aspired to live a rich and creative life on earth and to fulfill themselves through artistic and literary activity.The Renaiance shattered the dominance of religion over art, shifting attention from heaven to the natural world and to the human being;Renaiance artists often dealt with religious themes but they placed their subjects in a naturalistic setting.Humanism is the hallmark of the Renaiance.Renaiance humanism is the spirit of learning that developed at the end of the middle ages with the revival of claical letters and a renewed confidence in the ability of human beings to determine for themselves truth and falsehood.Disdaining藐视，摒弃 Christian humility, Renaiance individuals took pride in their talent and worldly accomplishments.The great Renaiance painter Leonardo da Vinci said, ―I can work miracles‖.The English Renaiance The English Renaiance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating from the early 16th century to the early 17th century.It is aociated with the pan-European Renaiance.This era in English cultural history is sometimes referred to as ―the age of Shakespeare（1564～1616）“ or ”the Elizabethan era."(reigning England from 1558 to 1603).What a piece of work is a man, How noble in Reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how expre and admirable, In action how like an Angel!in apprehension how like a god, the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals.(II.ii.293–297)【人是多么非凡的作品！理性如此高贵！力量如此无穷！行动宛若天使！思考宛若天神！宇宙之精华！万物之灵长！】

Comparison of the English and Italian Renaiances The English Renaiance is distinct from the Italian Renaiance in several ways.First, the dominant art form of the English Renaiance was literature, while the Italian Renaiance was driven much more by the visual arts视觉艺术, such as painting and sculpture.Second, the English movement is separated from the Italian by time: many trace the Italian Renaiance to Dante or Petrarch in the early 1300s, and most of the famous Italian Renaiance figures ceased their creative output by the 1520s.In contrast, the English Renaiance seems to begin in the 1520s, reaching its apex around the year 1600, and not concluding until roughly the restoration of Charles II in the 1660s.Finally, the English seem to have been le directly influenced by claical antiquity, which was highlighted in the Italian Renaiance;instead, the English were primarily influenced by the Italians themselves, and rediscovered the claical authors through them.The English Renaiance: A Summary From the first half of the 16th century, the English Renaiance began to develop into a flowering of literature.Translation occupied an importance place in the English Renaiance.To supply the growing demand of the public, claical and Italian and French works were turned into English.They were at once delightful reading for the general reader and models for imitation to the author.Thomas North‘s translation of Plutarch‘s希腊的历史家Lives of Greek and Roman Heroes, for example, supplied Shakespeare with the material for Julius Caesar.Don Quixote was translated into English as early as 1612, during the lifetime of its author Cervantes(1547-1616).Other well-known translations included Florio‘s Montaigne(Eays)and Chapman‘s Homer.The nationalistic feeling which had risen with the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1 awakened people‗s desire for knowledge about England‘s past history.Holinshed‘s Chronicles, a work on English, Scottish and Irish history, supplied Shakespeare with materials for some of his historical plays.（Macbeth）The vigor of the age, however, found better expreions in the sphere of poetry.Thousands of exquisite poems and songs were written by known and unknown poets.The culmination顶点 of the English Renaiance is undeniably reached by William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, the two greatest playwrights in the Elizabethan Era.