Humanism And Classicism Essay Research Paper Humanism

Humanism And Classicism Essay, Research Paper

Humanism and Classicism

The Renaissance was a time of great achievements and prosperity. During the Renaissance, people moved out of the manor system of the medieval age and into the cities. The Renaissance brought the flourish of trade, business, market systems, and money. However, the true achievement of the Renaissance was in the arts. The bleak medieval ages had shut people out of the arts and reinforced Bible Christianity. Beginning with the 1400 s the perspective on the arts and philosophy began to change. Painters such as Michelangelo and Donatelo and writers such as Dante, Machiavelli, and Petrarch began the Renaissance with their deep and insightful works. Soon an era of enlightenment swept from Italy to all over Europe. Some say that the most important achievement of the Renaissance was the idea of perspective because it is used so frequently in art today. However, the Renaissance idea that is most evident today is the humanist views about a broad education curriculum and the church. Humanistic views about the study of history, literature, and religion are still used in schools today. Through humanism the great philosophers of the Renaissance studied the works of the Romans and Greeks. This study of the Greeks and Romans came to be known as classicism.

Humanism, in philosophy, is the attitude that emphasizes the dignity and worth of the individual. A basic premise of humanism is that people are rational beings who possess within themselves the capacity for truth and goodness. The term humanism is most often used to describe a literary and cultural movement that spread through western Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries (Lucas 54). This Renaissance revival of Greek and Roman studies emphasized the value of the classics for their own sake, rather than for their relevance to Christianity.

The humanist movement started in Italy, where the late medieval Italian writers Dante, Giovanni Boccaccio, and Francesco Petrarch contributed greatly to the discovery and preservation of classical works (Gilmore 12). Humanist ideals were forcefully expressed by another Italian scholar, Pico della Mirandola, in his Oration on the dignity of man. The movement was further stimulated by the influx of Byzantine scholars who came to Italy after the fall of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) to the Turks in 1453 and also by the establishment of the Platonic Academy in Florence (Lucas 25). The academy, whose leading thinker was Marsilio Ficino, was founded by the 15th-century Florentine statesman and patron of the arts Cosimo de Medici. The institution sought to revive Platonism and had particular influence on the literature, painting, and architecture of the times (Lucas 27).

The collection and translation of classical manuscripts became widespread, especially among the higher clergy and nobility. The invention of printing with movable type, around the mid-15th century, gave a further impetus to humanism through the dissemination of editions of the classics. Although in Italy humanism developed principally in the fields of literature and art, in central Europe, where it was introduced chiefly by the German scholars Johann Reuchlin and Melanchthon, the movement extended into the fields of theology and education, and was a major underlying cause of the Reformation (Burckhardt 25).

One of the most influential scholars in the development of humanism in France was the Dutch cleric Desiderius Erasmus, who also played an important part in introducing the movement into England. There humanism was definitely established at the University of Oxford by the English classical scholars William Grocyn and Thomas Linacre, and at the University of Cambridge by Erasmus and the English prelate John Fisher. From the universities it spread throughout English society and paved the way for the great flourishing of Elizabethan literature and culture (Hadas 44).

History was a very important issue stressed by the humanists. The humanists encouraged the study of history, as to not repeat the same mistakes again. In the Middle Ages, history was not studied. The humanist believed that in the studies of history, one might discover successes and flaws of their ancestors. If someone knows how to become successful, then they will attempt to do it. If someone knows what will become a flaw, they will not attempt it. The humanist belief of studying history hinged on the above two statements. The typical humanist studied Greek and Roman writings, because they aspired to be like the Greeks and Romans. Since the Greeks and Romans were very successful at what they set out to do, humanists attempted to mirror some of their actions. For example, humanists began to take on a more worldly belief, rather than a spiritual one. Religion began to play an unimportant role in the daily life of a humanist. Humanists would rather mirror the Greeks and Roman and spend time on philosophy, prose, and poetry. Humanistic views on religion affected today’s views very much. So the humanists, by and large, acted as if Christianity were a myth conformable to the needs of popular imagination and morality, but not to be taken seriously by emancipated minds (Lucas 84).

The humanists accepted Christianity because it was a means of which to escape reality for normal people. However, since the humanists considered themselves to have free minds, th