Page 33 - DENG402_HISTORY_OF_ENGLISH_LITERATURE

History of English Literature

Notes Coming to kiss her lips (such grace I found),
Me seem’d I smelt a garden of sweet flow’rs,
That dainty odours from them threw around,.
For damsels fit to deck their lovers, ‘bow ‘rs.
Her lips did smell like unto gilliflowers,
Her ruddy cheeks like unto roses red,
Her snowy brows like budded betlamoures,
Her lovely eyes like pinks but newly spread,
Her goodly bosom like a strawberry bed.
Her neck like to a bunch ofcullambines.
Her breast like lilies ere their leaves be shed,
Her nipples like young blossom ‘d jessamines;
Such fragrant flow ‘ers do give most odorous smell,
But her sweet odour did them all excel.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:
1. The great Greek philosophers, plato and his disciple Aristotle, exerted a strong hold on
spenser's intellectual and .................... .
2. The abstract Idea is divine, and the contemplation of the Idea is a .................... .
3. Aristotle, too, was a philosopher of abiding interest for .................... .
4. Another Renaissance Feature of spenser's work is his employment of classical mythology
for ornament and .................... .
5. A new creed of humanism arrived with the Renaissance in .................... .

4.5 The Renaissance

The Renaissance 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 term is
also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were
not uniform across Europe, this is a general use of the term. As a cultural movement, it encompassed
a flowering of literature, science, art, religion, and politics, and a resurgence of learning based on
classical sources, the development of linear perspective in painting, and gradual but widespread
educational reform. Traditionally, this intellectual transformation has resulted in the Renaissance
being viewed as a bridge between the middle Ages and the Modern era. Although the Renaissance
saw revolutions in many intellectual pursuits, as well as social and political upheaval, it is perhaps
best known for its artistic developments and the contributions of such polymaths as Leonardo da
Vinci and Michelangelo, who inspired the term “Renaissance man”.

There is a consensus the Renaissance began in Florence, Tuscany in the 14th century. Various
theories have been proposed to account for its origins and characteristics, focusing on a variety of
factors including the social and civic peculiarities of Florence at the time; its political structure; the
patronage of its dominant family, the Medici.
The Renaissance has a long and complex historiography, and there has been much debate among
historians as to the usefulness of Renaissance as a term and as a historical delineation. Some have
called into question whether the Renaissance was a cultural “advance” from the middle Ages,
instead seeing it as a period of pessimism and nostalgia for the classical age, while others have
instead focused on the continuity between the two eras. Indeed, some have called for an end to the
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