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Literature 1B
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Lecture notes of 20 pages for the course Literature 1B at UL (Notes on lit 1b)
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Week 1Renaissance
Mario Klarer:
In the early 15th century, Renaissance ideas began to spread from Italy all over
Europe.
Unlike the Middle Ages, the Renaissance fully explores and revives all classical
literature, including ancient Greek texts.
The term ‘Renaissance’, meaning rebirth, expresses this basic concern of the period.
Byzantine scholars, who disseminate the command of the classical Greek language in
Western Europe, enable access to a hitherto neglected area of cultural history.
The first phase of the Renaissance is known as humanism and focuses especially on
aspects of classical languages, literatures, and rhetoric.
The term ‘Renaissance’: problems
The term did not come into general use until the 19th century.
Used by 19th century historians to denote both a period in history and to describe a set
of distinct cultural ideas and values.
The term ‘Renaissance’: meaning
‘Rebirth’ (Italian rinascenza), that is, the rebirth of the study and use of classical Latin
and Greek literature and culture.
Division into periods:
Antiquity (ends ca. 500)
Middle Ages/ ‘Dark Ages’ (ca. 500 – 1350/1400)
Renaissance (begins ca. 1350/1400)
Other term: Early Modern:
‘Renaissance’ vs. ‘Early Modern’
Main characteristics of Early Modern Period:
New learning:
o Revival of the knowledge of classical Greek
o 476: fall of Western Roman Empire
o 1453: fall of Constantinople/ Byzantium
o Scholars took their knowledge of ancient Greek and Greek manuscripts to the
West (Italy), knowledge of Latin was never lost in the West.
Emphasis on man:
o Humanists began to stress the possible perfectibility of man. Man could
improve himself through education.
o Humanism is NOT a rejection of God/Christianity! It is an attempt to reconcile
the study of the classics with Christian beliefs.
o Reconsideration of aspects of Christian beliefs and practices
New religion:
o Period of Reformation (Martin Luther)/Protestantism
,Renaissance Humanism:
Renaissance scholars sought to recover, to revive, to imitate and to emulate the
achievements of classical antiquity.
‘A humanist was a classical scholar with two complementary aims: to recover the
moral values of classical life, and to imitate the language and style of the classics as a
means to that end. He hoped to unite wisdom (sapientia) and eloquence (eloquentia).’
- Isabel Rivers, chapter 9
‘Humanism’ comes from the Latin humanitas, which means
1. ‘Humankind’ or ‘humanity’; but humanitas is also
2. A translation of the Greek word paideia, which stands for culture or for a liberal
education which fully develops a human being. (cp. our word ‘pedagogical).
Education is key:
So, education or study is an important means of turning yourself into a better person.
Mythology:
Mythological references can work as a sort of language, a ‘code’, even as a sort of
shorthand code, to communicate meaning.
‘Myth’ and ‘Mythology’:
In classical Greek, the word ‘myth’ (mythos) originally meant ‘speech, that which is
spoken’ or ‘word’; later it came to signify a narrative, a story.
‘Logos’, ‘word’, Connected to reason and thought.
‘Mythology’ combines the words ‘mythos’ and ‘logos’.
A myth can be seen as one story in a mythology, that is, a system (logos) that
connects the stories (mythoi) with another.
Mythology can thus mean 2 things:
o The telling of the stories
o The study of the stories, the analysis of the stories
Origin of classical myth:
Myth was used to explain why the world is as it is and why things happen as they do,
especially in our relation to the intentions and actions of deities and other supernatural
beings.
A myth, then, is a special kind of story which tries to interpret some aspect of the
world around us.
Nachleben: which stands for the adaptation/appropriation of a myth by later writers, thereby
ensuring that that myth survives and has an ‘afterlife’.
‘Transformation’: that is, the process of change that a specific myth undergoes when it is
used by later writers.
Example: Odysseus
, Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey
In the Iliad, Odysseus is presented as a very clever and cunning man, kind of a
negotiator for the welfare of the Greek army. He is the one to invent the trick of the
Trojan horse.
2 main representations of Odysseus:
o Odysseus as an extremely intelligent, clever, and cunning man
o Odysseus as a traveller, a man making a voyage (The wanderer)
Several nachlebens of Odysseus:
Horace (65 – 8 BC); Epistula 1.2. Episode of Sirens:
o Presents the Greek hero as an example of virtue and as a symbol of the power
of reason.
o Odysseus wants to hear the sirens sing but doesn’t want to incur any risks; he
has himself tied to the ship’s mast and has his fellow shipmates fill their ears
with wax. This way he will hear them singing but can’t leave the ship or have
his shipmates untie him and his shipmates can’t hear the singing or his cries.
Odysseus can now hear the sirens without danger.
o Horace presents Odysseus as someone who can use his reason and restrain his
desires. He’s a virtuous man.
o Allegory: a way of writing and reading which turns a text into something
which can be read on at least 2 levels:
1st level: literal action of the narrative
2nd level: deeper meanings of the actions and settings
Where Homer simply gives us the narrative, Horace explains it, he
gives the deeper meaning.
o Early Fathers of the church: allegorical readings saved classical literature (they
can now be read through a Christian lens).
o Odysseus’s journey to his home, Ithaca, becomes a metaphor for the Christian
soul travelling through life to get to heaven. The sirens can be seen as a
metaphor for everything which makes us want to sin and the boat can be seen
as a metaphor for the church.
Dante Alighieri (1265 – 1321); Divina Commedia:
o Odysseus is being punished because he was not satisfied with the limits God
posed on man.
o He never goes back to Ithaca; he likes to wander.
o He wants to go where no man has gone before, to the pillars of Hercules, the
limit of the known world.
o He wants to cross into the divine realm which God cannot permit so he sends
him to hell.
Alfred Lord Tennyson; Ulysses:
o In this version he does reach home, but he is very dissatisfied with his life
there, so he sets out again to explore the unknown.
o Tennyson is combining Homer and Dante.
o He is a presented as a man who is restless. Whose love for travelling is greater
than the love he has for his family and people.
James Joyce (1922); Ulysses:
o The title shows us we are dealing with a transformation (English version of
Odysseus).
o 18 episodes, many of them modelled after Homer.
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