LIT 207 Gazzara William Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth I Renaissance (16 th ) / Early Modern Period Renaissance (first used in 19 th Century) periods conscious break with medieval culture REVIVAL OF GREEK AND ROMAN CULTURE (14 th Century Italy to England (15 th /16 th Cent.) Rebirth means that classical learning wasnt dead Middle Ages (monastic) preserved/transformed much Latin culture BARELY Greek, though unavailable texts NEW GREEK TEXTS = ENORMOUS INFLUENCE Used in linguistics for the stage of language that came right after Middle English sweeping cultural change 16 th century and our own present Seeds of modern world were being sown (market economy, individual subject, centralized state) Tensions, ambiguities, and conflicts A series of RUPTURES and CONFLICTS LITERARY PROBLEMwho should be allowed to read a certain book, and in what language? Power of English vis--vis the Printing Press Power/status costumes, symbols of authority, and visible signs of rank Clothing = identity/gender identity and social rank Dramatists and the metatheatre disguise and revelation Renaissance courtier (writing of poetry) Power a species of performance? Tudor the world as a stage Love/sex/desire/self wider cultural themes English poets discovered Petrarchs love of poetry shortly before a half-century of female rulePROFOUND CONSEQUENCES Virgin queen = erotics of power / desire and subjectivity Even the powerful must love First English lit responses to discovery of New World across the Atlantic First English attempts to explore and settle there Mores UTOPA ex of New World writing commenting on affairs closer to home Racism/Xenophobia, but better, wiser, just, noble than English societya weird balance Can England have been thought of as the New World, amid this period of drastic religious, cultural, and economic change? Influence of Henry VIII/Elizabeth I 80 years Lady Jane Grey, Mary Tudor, Mary Queen of Scots (England or Scotland) Intense interest direct or allegorical depictions Shakespeare FICTIONAL/HISTORICAL rulers POWER AS SPECTACLE Fascinating, threatening, strangely vulnerable Enduringly controversial text International audience of humanist intellectuals Focus = ILLS of contemporary Europe Book 1 Hythlodays sarcastic response to Mors suggestion to devote time and energy to public affairs by joining the council of some great prince DEVASTATING critique of European society and governmentGREED, ARROGANCE, IGNORANCE, CRUELTY Abolition of private property/introduction of common ownership = JUST society FORM: Political treatise/dialogue SUMMARY ORGANIZATION THEMES (the just society; private property; the role of the intellectual; the value of religion) Your sheepthat used to be so meek and eat so little. Now they are becoming so greedy and wild that they devour human beings themselves, as I hear (531). Nothing in the world that fortune can bestow is equal in value to a human life (533). There is no place for philosophy in the councils of kings (541). I am wholly convinced that unless private property is entirely done away with, there can be no fair or just distribution of goods, no can the business or mortals be happily conducted (544). 1. What good is academic theory in relation to political realities? 2. Is it better to remain aloof and idealistic, or to try to change the system from within? 3. Should government aim to deter crime through harsh penalties or prevent it by looking to the root economic causes? 4. What do you make of the multiplicity of voices? Is the More always to be identified with the author of the work? Is it significant that More in Latin can also connote fool? What should we make of that fact that More, at the time of writing, was himself considering whether he should pursue a career as a counselor to power, or preserve his integrity as an unaligned intellectual? Complex, ambiguous, unsettling Elizabethan travel narrative Algonkians English favored by God; throws their own priests into doubt Algonkian POPOGUSSO and Christians belief in hell? 1. Describe the moment of encounter, noting the different ways Europeans and Native Americans are seen to perceive and respond to one another. 2. Is Hariot capable of grasping the genuine difference of Native American culture? Does he seem too often to have one eye on England, whose own customs and beliefs can never been seen in quite the same way after the encounter? 3. What comparisons, if any, can be made to Draytons text? Why or why not?