214. THE RENAISSANCE IN LITERATURE
HUMANISM AND THE VERNACULAR
The renewed interest in classical studies for a time retarded the development of national languages and literatures in Europe. To the humanists only Latin and Greek seemed worthy of notice. Petrarch, for instance, composed in Italian beautiful sonnets which are still much admired, but he himself expected to gain literary immortality through his Latin works. Another Italian humanist went so far as to call Dante "a poet for bakers and cobblers," and the Divine Comedy was indeed translated into Latin a few years after the author's death.
THE VERNACULAR REVIVAL
But a return to the vernacular was bound to come. The common people understood little Latin, and Greek not at all. Yet they had learned to read and they now had the printing press. Before long many books composed in Italian, Spanish, French, English, and other national languages made their appearance. This revival of the vernacular meant that henceforth European literature would be more creative and original than was possible when writers merely imitated or translated the classics. The models provided by Greece and Rome still continued, however, to furnish inspiration to men of letters.
MACHIAVELLI, 1469-1527 A.D.
The Florentine historian and diplomat, Machiavelli, by his book, The Prince, did much to found the modern science of politics. Machiavelli, as a patriotic Italian, felt infinite distress at the divided condition of Italy, where numerous petty states were constantly at war. In The Prince he tried to show how a strong, despotic ruler might set up a national state in the peninsula. He thought that such a ruler ought not to be bound by the ordinary rules of morality. He must often act "against faith, against charity, against humanity, and against religion." The end would justify the means. Success was everything; morality, nothing. This dangerous doctrine has received the name of "Machiavellism"; it is not yet dead in European statecraft.
CERVANTES, 1547-1616 A.D.
Spain during the sixteenth century gave to the world in Cervantes the only Spanish writer who has achieved a great reputation outside his own country. Cervantes's masterpiece, Don Quixote, seems to have been intended as a burlesque upon the romances of chivalry once so popular in Europe. The hero, Don Quixote, attended by his shrewd and faithful squire, Sancho Panza, rides forth to perform deeds of knight-errantry, but meets, instead, the most absurd adventures. The work is a vivid picture of Spanish life. Nobles, priests, monks, traders, farmers, innkeepers, muleteers, barbers, beggars—all these pass before our eyes as in a panorama. Don Quixote immediately became popular, and it is even more read to-day than it was three centuries ago.
[Illustration: CERVANTES]
FROISSART, 1397(?)-1410 A.D.
The Flemish writer, Froissart, deserves notice as a historian and as one of the founders of French prose. His Chronicles present an account of the fourteenth century, when the age of feudalism was fast drawing to an end. He admired chivalry and painted it in glowing colors. He liked to describe tournaments, battles, sieges, and feats of arms. Kings and nobles, knights and squires, are the actors on his stage. Froissart traveled in many countries and got much of his information at first hand from those who had made history. Out of what he learned he composed a picturesque and romantic story, which still captivates the imagination.
MONTAIGNE, 1533-1593 A.D.
A very different sort of writer was the Frenchman, Montaigne. He lives to- day as the author of one hundred and seven essays, very delightful in style and full of wit and wisdom. Montaigne really invented the essay, a form of literature in which he has had many imitators.
CHAUCER, 1340(?)-1400 A.D.
Geoffrey Chaucer, who has been called the "morning star" of the English Renaissance, was a story-teller in verse. His Canterbury Tales are supposed to be told by a company of pilgrims, as they journey from London to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury. [16] Chaucer describes freshly and with unfailing good spirits the life of the middle and upper classes. He does not reveal, any more than his contemporary Froissart, the labor and sorrows of the down-trodden peasantry. But Chaucer was a true poet, and his name stands high in England's long roll of men of letters.
SHAKESPEARE, 1564-1616 A.D.
This survey of the national authors of the Renaissance may fitly close with William Shakespeare, whose genius transcended national boundaries and made him a citizen of all the world. His life is known to us only in barest outline. Born at Stratford-on-Avon, of humble parentage, he attended the village grammar school, where he learned "small Latin and less Greek", went to London as a youth, and became an actor and a playwright. He prospered, made money both from his acting and the sale of his plays, and at the age of forty-four retired to Stratford for the rest of his life. Here he died eight years later, and here his grave may still be seen in the village church. [17] During his residence in London he wrote, in whole or in part, thirty-six or thirty-seven dramas, both tragedies and comedies. They were not collected and published until several years after his death. Shakespeare's plays were read and praised by his contemporaries, but it has remained for modern men to see in him one who ranks with Homer, Vergil, Dante, and Goethe among the great poets of the world.
[Illustration: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE From the copper plate engraved by Martin Droeshout as frontispiece to the First Folio edition of Shakespeare's works in 1623 A.D. In this engraving the head is far too large for the body and the dress is out of perspective. The only other authentic likeness of Shakespeare is the bust over his grave in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford on Avon]
[Illustration: SHAKESPEARE'S BIRTHPLACE, STRATFORD-ON-AVON The house in which Shakespeare was born has been much altered in exterior appearance since the poet's day. The timber framework, the floors, most of the interior walls, and the cellars remain, however, substantially unchanged. The illustration shows the appearance of the house before the restoration made in 1857 A.D.]
PERSONALITY IN RENAISSANCE LITERATURE
Renaissance poets and prose writers revealed themselves in their books. In the same way the sculptors and painters of the Renaissance worked out their own ideas and emotions in their masterpieces. This personal note affords a sharp contrast to the anonymity of the Middle Ages. We do not know the authors of the Song of Roland, the Nibelungenlied, and Reynard the Fox, any more than we know the builders of the Gothic cathedrals. Medieval literature subordinated the individual; that of the Renaissance expressed the sense of individuality and man's interest in himself. It was truly "humanistic."