Renaissance thought and the arts collected essays

Aesthetics, a not very tidy intellectual discipline, is a heterogeneous collection of problems that concern the arts primarily but also relate to nature. In practice, aesthetic judgement refers to the sensory contemplation or appreciation of an object not necessarily an art objectwhile artistic judgement refers to the recognition, appreciation or criticism of art or an art work. Philosophical aesthetics has not only to speak about art and to produce judgments about art works, but also has to give a definition of what art is.

Medieval period The origins of vernacular writing Bywhen the Muslim invasion of the Iberian Peninsula began, Latin spoken there had begun its transformation into Romance.

These jarchas provide evidence of a popular poetry begun perhaps as early as the 10th century, and they are related to traditional Spanish lyric types e.

Vernacular chroniclers mention many other heroic minstrel narratives, now lost, but, as a result of the incorporation of these narratives into chronicles, themes and textual passages can be reconstructed. The beginnings of prose A major influence on prose was exercised by Arabic.

Oriental learning entered Christian Spain with the capture of Toledo from the Muslims, and the city became a centre of translation from Oriental languages.

A romance of the Seven Sages, the Sendebar, was translated likewise through Arabic, with other collections of Eastern stories. A propitious intellectual atmosphere fomented the founding of universities, and under Alfonso X of Castile and Leon reigned —84 vernacular literature achieved prestige.

Alfonso, in whose chancery Castilian replaced Latin, mandated translations and compilations aimed at fusing all knowledge—Classical, Oriental, Hebrew, and Christian—in the vernacular. Alfonso X, 13th-century manuscript illumination.

New England reformers and historians

The Book of Count Lucanor and Patronio —which consists of 51 moral tales variously didactic, amusing, and practical—drew partly on Arabic, Oriental, and popular Spanish sources. Eustace, the Roman general miraculously converted to Christianity.

It enthralled the popular imagination through the 16th century with its sentimental idealism, lyrical atmosphere, and supernatural adventure. The result mingled eroticism with devotion and invited readers to interpret often-equivocal teachings.

Ruiz handled alexandrine metre with new vigour and plasticity, interspersing religious, pastoral-farcical, amorous, and satirical lyrics of great metrical variety. More-exotic elements appeared in the Proverbios morales c. Numerous examples from medieval Spanish literature and folklore echoed the same themes e.

The 15th century The early 15th century witnessed a renewal of poetry under Italian influence. The collection showed not merely the decadence of Galician-Portuguese troubadours but also the stirrings of more-intellectual poetry incorporating symbol, allegoryand Classical allusions in the treatment of moral, philosophical, and political themes.

Francisco Imperial, a Genoese who settled in Sevilla and a leader among new poets, drew on Danteattempting to transplant the Italian hendecasyllable syllable line to Spanish poetry. He is still acknowledged as a precursor of the Renaissance, though his sonnets and long poems, which reflect his Italian-influenced training, are often neglected in favour of his charming rustic songs of native inspiration.

Written with greater satiric force than other works that treated the dance of death theme, it introduced characters e. Although not intended for dramatic presentation, it formed the basis for later dramas.

The early Spanish humanists included the first grammarians and lexicographers of any Romance tongue. The dominant character, the procuress Celestina, is depicted with unsurpassed realism and gives the work the title by which it is commonly known, La Celestina.

Poetry Surviving for centuries in the oral tradition, Spanish ballads romances link medieval heroic epic to modern poetry and drama. The earliest datable romances—from the midth century, although the romance form itself has been traced to the 11th century—treated frontier incidents or lyrical themes.

Aesthetics - Wikipedia

The romance form octosyllabic, alternate lines having a single assonance throughout was quickly adopted by cultured poets and also became the medium of choice for popular narrative verse.

Garcilaso added intense personal notes and characteristic Renaissance themes to a masterful poetic technique derived from medieval and Classical poets. The popularity of the short native metres was reinforced by traditional ballad collections romanceros and by the evolving drama.

Models for epic poetry were the works of Italian poets Ludovico Ariosto and Torquato Tassobut the themes and heroes of Spanish epics celebrated overseas conquest or defense of the empire and the faith. Early drama Spanish drama originated in the church. Juan del Encina helped emancipate the drama from ecclesiastical ties by giving performances for noble patrons.

His conception of drama evolved during his long stay in Italy, with native medievalism transforming into Renaissance experimentation. His four prose comedies have been called clumsy, but his 10 pasos showed his dramatic merits.

Aesthetics - Wikipedia

Major landmarks in historical writing emanated from the New World, transmuting vital experience into literature with unaccustomed vividness. These chivalric romances perpetuated certain medieval ideals, but they also represented pure escapism, eventually provoking such literary reactions as the pastoral novel and the picaresque novel.

The former, imported from Italy, oozed nostalgia for an Arcadian golden age; its shepherds were courtiers and poets who, like the knights-errant of chivalric romance, turned their backs on reality.

Another reaction appeared in the picaresque novela genre initiated with the anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes Passing from master to master, he depicted life from underneath.

Miguel de Cervantesthe preeminent figure in Spanish literature, produced in Don Quixote part 1, ; part 2, the prototype of the modern novel. Where Don Quixote saw and attacked an advancing army, Sancho saw only a herd of sheep; what Sancho perceived as windmills were menacing giants to the questing knight-errant.

She too published Italian-inspired short stories, in the collections Novelas amorosas y ejemplares ; Eng.Albrecht Dürer: The Genius with a Great Soul.

Albrecht Dürer was not only the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance, but also a unique personality, his genius coexisting with a pure, noble character. American Renaissance.

The authors who began to come to prominence in the s and were active until about the end of the Civil War—the humorists, the classic New Englanders, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and others—did their work in a new spirit, and their achievements were of a new sort.

Overview. The Renaissance was a cultural movement that profoundly affected European intellectual life in the early modern regardbouddhiste.coming in Italy, and spreading to the rest of Europe by the 16th century, its influence was felt in literature, philosophy, art, music, politics, science, religion, and other aspects of intellectual inquiry.

C. S. Lewis's Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature is a collection of fourteen fascinating essays, half of which were never published in Lewis's lifetime.

Langston Hughes was first recognized as an important literary figure during the s, a period known as the "Harlem Renaissance" because of the number of emerging black writers.

The Masterminds of Art - The artists I have chosen for my research paper are Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti.

The period the two artists lived in was the Renaissance period.