The Renaissance era embraces the period between 14th and 16th centuries.
The term Renaissance itself means the rebirth what in some respect is referred to the rebirth from the obscurity of middle Ages and is originated from a French word. This period has influenced all of branches of human life including religion, philosophy, politics, music, science and literature.
Taking into consideration the Renaissance literature it is to be mentioned that there are generally three periods of its development. These are Early Renaissance (14th century), High Renaissance (15th -16th century) and Late Renaissance (16th century). The Renaissance era in literature begun from the well-known Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy.
The more important writers of the Renaissance were William Shakespeare, Thomas More, Florentine Boccaccio, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Miguel de Cervantes, Francesco Petrarch and Niccolo Machiavelli. In theirs works the authors referred to the ideals reflected in ancient civilizations like Roman or Greek. They incorporated the classical style into their own works.
Religious works, lyric poetry, and drama were three major types of literature in the Renaissance era. This period is characterized by the emergence of new genre of short story.
During the Renaissance great changes in world literature have occurred. The first and the most considerable one was the break with the Latin language in the literature. The writers started to write in national languages. The introduction of moveable-type printing press in the 15th century stimulated great development of literature as well as eliminated the use of manuscripts. Comparing with previous era, books became cheaper and people in order to read a book did not have to know Latin anymore; thus, the books became more affordable in the Renaissance.
The Renaissance generally and its literature particularly not only gave the brilliant group of outstanding authors to the world, but actually altered the course of the history as well as the literature.
References
Brotton , J. (2006). The Renaissance: A very short introduction. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Lewis C. (1980). Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature. United Kingdom, UK: Cambridge University Press.
(Lewis, 1980)
References: Brotton , J. (2006). The Renaissance: A very short introduction. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Lewis C. (1980). Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature. United Kingdom, UK: Cambridge University Press. (Lewis, 1980)
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