Renaissance Criticism

Renaissance Writers:
 Renaissance Literature really began in 14th-century Italy and produced many outstanding
artists, writers, and thinkers and three of the greatest figures are Dante, Petrarch, and
Machiavelli. Dante Alighieri is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia,
later named La divina commedia (The Divine Comedy). On the other hand, Petrarch, or
Francesco Petrarca, was regarded as the greatest scholar of his age. He was to profoundly
impact the Renaissance's poetry, not only in Italy but throughout Europe. Meanwhile,
Machiavelli wrote the Prince, that gives a general overview of human behavior.
 The Renaissance is an important event in European history that stretched from the 14th
century to the 17th century. The most significant changes that emerged as a result of the
Renaissance can be seen in European architecture, art, literature, mathematics, music,
philosophy, politics, religion and science.
 The Renaissance in Scotland was a cultural, intellectual and artistic movement in Scotland,
from the late fifteenth century to the beginning of the seventeenth century. The English
Renaissance, on the other hand, was also a cultural and artistic movement in England from
the early 16th century to the early 17th century.
 The works of the said writers were considered Renaissance in nature because they were
greatly influenced by Renaissance. Renaissance movement in the arts was peaking on
their countries. And new openness and humanism are reflected in those works.
Philip Sidney’s An Apology for Poetry
A. Sir Philip Sidney
The Areopagus is a claimed 16th-century club dedicated to English poetry improvement. The
society may have involved people such as Edmund Spenser, Gabriel Harvey, Edward Dyer, Fulk
Grewil, and Sir Phillip Sidney. It also refers to the general project of these poets to broaden
English prosody by incorporating French, Italian, Classical, and Anglo-Saxon models. So in other
words, they want to broaden the influence of English Poetry during this period.
“The Defence of Poesy” was originally published under two different titles, The Defence of Poesie
and An Apologie for Poetrie. It is a thorough and vigorous argument written by a practitioner of the
art, who also had a strong education in the classics. He forms his argument in a classical seven-
part structure. In “The Defense of Poesy,” he references classical texts and examines different
forms of poetry. Sidney brings pride back to the art of poetry, highlighting past works and authors
and making them shine brighter than before.
B. Apologie for Poetrie/Defense of Poetry: A Background
Stephen Gosson, an English satirist, discusses the moral standpoint of the public theatre in the
early modern period with his publication of Schoole of Abuse in 1579. From Stephen Gosson, The
School of Abuse, containing an insulting language against Poets. Gosson not only warns women
of the dangers of the theatre, he warns the men of the same dangers with women at the threshold
of the inappropriate behavior that took place in the arena. Despite the misleading name of this
book, Gosson does not apologize for the harsh review he displays for the theatre because he
sought to protect the virtue of both men and women.
Meanwhile, Sir Philip Sidney’s The Defence of Poesy responds to contemporary and ancient
criticisms of poetry. Relying heavily on examples from ancient history and literature, Sidney argues
in this work that poetry surpasses the other literary genres in its ability to stir its audience to
“virtuous action.”
Here, we realized that Sidney wrote the Defense of Poesy to tell Gosson and other people that
poetry is worth it and that it is not full of lies.
C. Key Features to understand the Renaissance Literary Criticism based on “The Defense of
Poesy”
To strengthen his ideas, Sidney says that literature of the Renaissance is characterized by the
adoption of a Humanist philosophy. When we say humanist philosophy it focuses in three
elements. The three elements are: Critical Thinking, Compassion Based Ethics, Personal
Responsibility. So that’s humanist Philosophy. Classical literature of Antiquity, on the other hand,
explores research and discussion of major issues throughout the field of classics, including Greek
and Roman literature, history, and the like.
Moreso, on the works of the Renaissance writers, Greco-Roman inspiration was evident. Greco-
Roman is having characteristics that are partly Greek and partly Roman.
Platonic ideas refers to Plato's theory of forms or doctrine of ideas. He believed that ideas were
more real than things. So belief greatly influence the renaissance literature.
A sonnet is a one-stanza, 14-line poem, written in iambic pentameter. Meanwhile, Spenserian
Stanza is a distinctive verse form used by Edmund Spenser The stanza has Nine lines and the
main meter is iambic pentameter.
2. The Truth-Value and Didactic Role of Literature
Let’s now proceed to The Truth-Value and Didactic Role of Literature.
a. The capacity of the poem to teach depends on how the poet constructed the whole poem. The
poems with didactic touch is written to inform or instruct the reader, especially in moral or political
lessons.
b. The example shows the difference between good or bad. It teaches us about morality. We could
considered people heroes if they are noted for courageous acts or nobility of character, but they
are evil if they continue to live their lives to harm others.
c. Didactic role during the renaissance:
1. Renaissance critics adopted Horatian Formula. Horatian formula pertains to usefulness of a
certain literary work and it raise an idea that literary works must give delightment and pleasure to
the spectators.
2. Same with the first one, poetry gives us ideas, teaches us things, and can also be use as a
diversion.
3. This was contrary to Gosson’s School of Abuse. Sidney says that poetry is not a waste of time
for it helps us understand and appreciate the world around us. In addition, it teaches us how to
live.
To sum up the didactic role, it has two fold purpose. To teach and to please.
3. The Classical “Unities”
a. If you’ll remember our past lesson we discussed unity of action and time introduced by Aristotle.
Now, Renaissance writers added another doctrine and that is unity of place. According to the Unity
of Place, the setting of the play should have one place. Aristotle never mentioned the Unity of
Place at all. He is not the author of it; it was imposed on him by the Renaissance critics of Italy and
France.
4. Notion of Verisimilitude
a. When we say verisimilitude, a theoretical concept that determines the level of truth in an
assertion or hypothesis.
1. For the renaissance poetry to be credible and convincing, it imitate objects that are real. In that
way, their poetry will have a sense of lifelikeness or truthfulness.
2. The way they imitate real objects can also be applied by the audience or audience will think that
their manner of imitation is also possible for them. So even if it’s fiction, or the poetry is fiction,
viewers still feel like it isn’t.
5. The Use of the Vernacular
a. Vernacular Literature is the language a person speaks from the place he/she is from. Dante and
Chaucer made it far more popular. Dante choose to write The Divine Comedy in Italian instead to
Latin to reach wider audience. Moreover, the vernacular helped artists create and distribute works
that patrons liked.
b. The Bible was translated into several European languages before the Reformation, and the
early reformers John Wycliffe (England) and Jan Hus (Bohemia) had championed the vernacular
Bible. All the major Protestant Reformers from Luther on insisted on translating the Bible into the
language of the common people.
c. Since some of the Renaissance literature were translated into the vernacular language,
Renaissance writers had a hard time, but they still addressed the issue when it comes to meter,
rhyming, etc.
6. The Definition of Poetic Genres Such as Narrative and Drama
a. As Renaissance writers wrote literature such as epic, tragedy, and comedy, they tried to revive
the ancient genres that were widely accepted before. Many genres originated in the Renaissance.
And it is true that the early modern historical context made possible the revival of several ancient
genres and the fresh invention of new ones.
b. They adapt ancient style and make it more appealing to the audience.
7. The Invention of New, Mixed Genres
a. When Renaissance writers were experimenting with the genres of art like mixing tragedy with
comedy, Renaissance critics can’t accept this because they wanted to preserve the purity of
genres. Comedy and tragedy were not to be mixed – NO element of one should be in the other.
But it’s different from William Shakespeare since the work of Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet is a
Tragicomedy. It’s tragic because the main characters died but also had a happy ending on the part
of the protagonist since they died together.
b. The literary genres of the Renaissance were the novel and poetry, mainly. Within these, an
appreciable number of other genres stood out such as essay and dialogue form. Meaning
renaissance writers wanted to communicate their works with the people and make them connect
with those works.
8. The Use of Rhyme in Poetry
a. An alliterative meter is a feature that assembles alliterative verse as a field for both modern
scholars and even medieval practitioners. Renaissance poets rejected the regular stress based
alliterative meter of medieval poets. Some experimented with the idea of classical quantitative
meters, based on length of syllables rather than stress. In general, the humanists rejected rhyme
as an unclassical barbarism. William Webbe and George Puttenham, went so far as to affiliate the
use of rhyme with a Roman Catholic mentality, led to the search for a new metrical basis for
English poetry and eventually fueled the growth of blank verse.
9. The Relative Values of Quantitative and Qualitative Verse
a. For Renaissance Writers it’s important to follow classical quantitative meter or verse because
they believed that one needs to count and measure letters in the works in order to determine the
system or the `quantities' of the syllables the he chose to use.
Sample Literature by Sidney and Its Interpretation
Since Philip Sidney is fond of writing seduction literature like Astrophil and Stella, Gosson claims
that poets mislead and seduce their audiences into a whole array of vices that’s prostitution.
However, Sidney said that he’s style of writing is like this because he wants to lead his audience
towards classical literature which pertains to exploration of human experience.
Astrophil and Stella 1: Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show By Sir Philip Sidney
Sidney's Astrophil desires Stella because she seems to him to be the most attractive person in
creation. To attract her, he has to be as attractive as possible himself. That can be best achieved
by reflecting her desirability. Astrophil imitates Stella for the same reason the child imitates the
mother, to gain her love.
As the narrator looks for ways and things to say to his lover in order to win her love, he forgets his
true essence of being a writer. In the last line,” ‘Fool,” said my Muse to me, ‘look in thy heart and
write,’ ” Erato or the muse of love poetry reminds him to write straight from his heart in his own
words and to stop looking for inspiration from elsewhere.
Moreover, the poem has love and nature as the main themes.

The name of the characters in the sonnet were derive from the two Greek words, 'aster' (star) and
'phil' (lover), and the Latin word 'stella' meaning star. Thus Astrophil is the star lover, and Stella is
his star.
The narrator describes his motivation for composing this sonnet sequence. He believes that his
true love Penelope will fall in love with him if she were to read this sonnet. The narrator composes
this sonnet with a clearly structured style to gain his lover’s heart. He also tries to gain some
inspiration from talented poets but to no avail. He finally concludes that by truly writing from his
heart, he will steal the heart of his one true love.
Sidney Used Two Methods:
The range of lexical means Sidney used in his cycle is wide. He used colloquial words, introduced
political, military, law terms enriching English poetry and national language in the whole.
1. Compound epithets is compound adjectives meaning it is the use or composition of two-three
words. Also compound epithets because the two or three words were connected by a hyphen.
2. Inversion is defined as a literary device in which the writer purposefully words phrases or
sentences in a non-traditional order. Sidney use inversion as a literary technique, they
purposefully reword phrasing in sentences to contrast the traditional organization in order to
achieve a desired effect on the audience.
Example:
Traditional order: The short woman asked for assistance while trying to reach items from the top
shelf.
If it was written through Inversion it will be like this: The woman of small stature asked for
assistance while trying to reach items from the top shelf.