Medieval Renaissance Discussion-Due 12/1 at 9Pm Pacifictime

Medieval Renaissance Discussion-Due 12/1 at 9pm PacificTime

Instruction:

In the early part of HUM251, we take up the matter of the Italian Renaissance. The Medieval Renaissance and the Italian Renaissance are somewhat different affairs. They happened at slightly different times in different places, and they happened for different reasons, but they share several common trends.One of those trends is the way people begin to be more concerned with the quality of life they are living and less preoccupied by the destiny of their eternal soul in the afterlife. (They were still very concerned about their eternal souls, but they were beginning to be concerned about other things as well.) This shift of emphasis is very apparent in art; both the art of the Medieval Renaissance and the art of the Italian Renaissance become more realistic and begin to include a significant amount of secular subject matter. Another way this shift become apparent is in the appearance of the first written works telling stories that are not just moral fables or religious allegories.

Based on the principle of the Aesthetic Imperative, I have asked you previously to look at works of art and architecture and to speculate on what they tell you about the character and personality of the people of the time. This time, I am asking about the two literary excerpts presented in this unit. Think about the stories of Fra Alberto, Monna Lisetta, the anonymous knight, and the equally anonymous Old Woman. Contrast them withthe Medieval fiction we have considered in the previous two units, including Dante and hisDivine Comedy,Gawain and the Green Knight, Hroswitha and herDulcitus, and theSong of Roland.

Notice anything?

Think particularly about how each story ends and what happens and what doesn't happen. What do these excerpts from Boccaccio and from Chaucer tell you about the character and personality of the people of the Medieval Renaissance period?

Note: The story from Boccaccio has a strongly anti-clerical theme, and that indicates people were feeling a big freer to offer up criticism of the Church. I know. I got that part. Don't talk about that. That's too obvious. Talk about other things.

Contrast the characters in the stories. Think about Roland and Gawain and the anonymous knight in the Wife of Bath's story. Think about Gawain, Dulcitus, and and Fra Alberto. Think about Monna Lisetta and Lady Bertilak.

Not sure what I'm getting at? Still struggling with the idea? Okay. Forget the Medieval period for a moment. Watch any TV? Ever seenI Love Lucy? Leave It to Beaver?Happy Days?The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet?Talk about a time warp! You step back into the fifties and look at how Mom stayed at home all day and cleaned the house and everybody was white and every family consisted of 2.5 children. Fast forward. What's on tonight?Modern Family?Two and a Half Men? Two Broke Girls? The Office?(In fact, are there any situation comedies about a single family with kids?) You think anything has changed in sixty years or so? We are talking two very different worlds here.

The key thing to keep in mind is that TV shows are broadcast on the networks to sell stuff. Therefore, the advertisers want shows that reflect the values of the people watching the shows. If we study the shows, therefore, we can learn a fair amount about the values of the people watching the shows. The people who watched TV in the fifties seem to have shared a lot of attitudes and values that are very different from the attitudes and values of the people who watch TV today.

Same thing here. That same kind of contrast exists between the world of Boccaccio and Chaucer and the worlds of their predecessors. It isn't just that the stories are different. Those stories reflect very different assumptions and attitudes. The people who read Gawain and Dante had very different attitudes and values from the people who read Chaucer and Boccaccio. (Can you imagine what the readers of Gawain would have thought of the Wife of Bath's Story? Can you imagine how the readers of Dulcitus would have reacted to the story of Monna Lilsetta?!) That's what I want you to tell me about. For your discussion post this week, tell me about the people who read Boccaccio and Chaucer.How were the attitudes and values of the readers of the Medieval Renaissancedifferent from those of the readers of the previous Medieval periods?

For the last time, your post must contain at least 200 words, and you need to use at least five of the red vocabulary words from this week's study guide. (Names and vocabulary words from other study guides may be used, but don't highlight them. I need five fromthis week's study guide.)

The attitudes and values of the people who read Boccaccio and Chaucer, both of whom were inspired by Petrarch, were quite different from those who would have read Gawain and Dante. While those who read Gawain and Dante reflected such attitudes and values as chivalric love, honor, and a host of virtues such as compassion, wisdom, knowledge, morality, and justice, those reading Boccaccio and Chaucer were more concerned with actual pragmatic, timely events. Famine and plague were ravaging Europe, and their mindset was different entirely. While pressed for survival, they needed entertainment to get their attention off of their grim reality, and the risqué entertainment of Chaucer’s “’The Wife of Bath” or the balm of Boccaccio’s patient, longsuffering Griselda were just what the thing. Individuals who had read Gawain and Dante would probably not have appreciated the ribald humor in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales as much as those in the medieval Renaissance. Much of Boccaccio and Chaucer’s work, too, poked fun at the clergy, which was a distinct departure from the likes of Dante’s Inferno. The Decameron’s “Novel II,” which concerns Alberto and Monna Lisetta, makes no bones about its criticism of the clergy, which during this time of the Inquisition and the Lay Piety movement with the Cathars and Waldensians, was dangerous as it threatened the authority of the church. Judging from the literature of the time, the people of the Medieval Renaissance were, in essence, likely to be more practical; driven by conflicting natures that were at once bawdy and fleshly, but also highly concerned with morality; and somewhat psychologically depressed by natural disasters such as the plague and the great famine.

These are the red VOCABS that are being use for this throughout.

1. Isabella
2. Edward II
3. Edward III
4. Jacquerie
5. Richard II
6. Henry IV
7. Charles VII
8. Joan of Arc
9. Wars of the Roses
10. Richard III
11. Henry VII
12. Hundred Years War
13. bubos
14. Lollards
15. John Wycliffe
16. Waldensians
17. Cathars
18. Albigensian Heresy
19. Dominic
20. Avignon Papacy
21. Jan Huss
22. Philip IV
23. conversos
24. Judaizing
25. Torquemada
26. auto-da-fe
27. the Index
28. the Holy Office
29. Robert Grosseteste
30. Roger Bacon
31. John Duns Scotus
32. William of Ockham
33. Gutenberg
34. Petrarch
35. Boccaccio
36. Christine de Pizan
37. Chaucer
38. Ockham’s Razor
39. Limbourg Brothers
40. Tres Riches Heures
41. Jan van Eyck
42. Hans Memling
43. Cimabue
44. Giotto
45. Arnolfini
46. Flamboyant style
47. Perpendicular
48. fan vaulting
49. campanile
50. Nicola Pisano
51. Claus Sluter

This is the reading material for this assignment.

Introduction

The final unit of the course examines the chaotic period from 1300 to 1500. First, we look at the devastating effects of the Hundred Years War, the plague, and the Inquisition. Then, we turn our attention to developments in theology and philosophy, literature,and sculpture. In the area of painting, we focus on how artists were liberated by the advent of oil paints.In architecture, we observe how the Gothic style stagnated in Europe and went in new directions in Italy. We also read excerpts from two of the best known writers of the period:Boccaccio and Chaucer.

The Narration: Part One

The aesthetic imperative is my name for that need, which I believe all human beings have, to express themselves through aesthetic choices. We choose our own clothes because we have a definite sense of what’s right for us, and we don’t like to wear clothes that we feel are wrong for us—because we don’t want to send the wrong signals. For the same reason, we decorate our room. Human beings just can’t seem to stand a blank wall!
In pretty much the same way, all societies decorate their rooms, too, to express their values and their personality through architecture, sculpture, literature, and so forth.
And I think that was precisely the problem when the Christians took over the Roman Empire. To make a long story short, they didn’t like the way it was decorated.
Everywhere they looked, they saw things that reminded them of that pagan civilization that had oppressed them and tortured them and tried to exterminate them. Today, we look at this stuff, and we think to ourselves, “Oh, that’s very beautiful.” But the early Christians looked at this stuff and thought to themselves, “That’s got to go!” And I also think that’s the reason why so much of the statuary that survives today has been damaged.
We saw exactly the same thing happen right after the United States brought down the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. We saw people everywhere pulling down those horrible statues of Saddam and painting over the murals and tearing down the signs.
Now, that was a major example of the aesthetic imperative at work. And if you think about the anger that was directed toward Saddam Hussein at that time, then you can understand why the Christians were so eager to get rid of all the reminders of bad old pagan Rome, and during the fourth and fifth centuries, that’s just what they did. They threw out the whole Greco-Roman tradition. All of it: the architecture, the sculpture, the fashions, the philosophy—everything.
Of course, it’s one thing to tear down what you don’t like, but it’s another thing entirely to figure out something else to take its place, some way to express the new you.
When Constantine uprooted his capital and moved to the banks of the Dardanelles, new decorating ideas were all around them—ideas from the east. Instead of that straight-lined, permanent press toga look, they adopted an Eastern look—busier, gaudier, highly textured. Instead of frescoes and bas-reliefs, they went for the glitzier mosaics.
In architecture, the new trend is most apparent in the design of the Hagia Sophia, which was built in the early sixth century. I mean, does this look anything a Roman building to you? All these domes and half domes are new.
But equally significant is what is missing. No rows of freestanding columns holding up triangular pediments. That look was out—and for good reason. That was the identifying characteristic of the Greek temple, and that was about as pagan as you could get.
To refresh your memory, this is the arch of Constantine, which Connie built for himself in 315 in Rome, two years after the Edict of Milan that officially ended the persecution of the Christians. It’s square, monumental in size, a big arch in the middle, and there’s lots of bas-relief sculpture.
Now, here’s the Hagia Sophia again. See, this why we stop calling this world Rome and start calling it Byzantium. It may have been a continuity of the same people, but it looked so much different. And it was different.
But over in the western empire, redecorating had to wait for a while. Things were too unstable, and nobody had any money. And I don’t think yet they really knew what they wanted to say about themselves. They were too busy just surviving.
In the meantime, they built churches that looked more like bunkers than houses of worship. They used a sort of utilitarian, watered-down Roman style that we call Romanesque. Heavy walls, limited windows, and no frou-frou. And definitely no porches with columns and pediments.
Then, in the middle of the twelfth century, things became relatively stable. People had money, and they started to think, we need a new look. That Romanesque thing is squaresville. We’re not in survival mode anymore. It’s time to redecorate. But how? And just at that moment, Abbot Suger appeared, a decorating genius if there ever was one.
At St. Denis, he pushed up the ceilings, used rib vaults to lighten the roof and added flying buttresses on the outside so the walls could be thinner, and then he opened up those walls with huge windows filled with glorious stained glass.
Because this was the royal chapel in Paris, many people came to see what was going on.
And you know how it is with Parisian fashions: What goes down the runway in the fall, six months later there are knock-offs at Target, right?
Over the next two centuries, hundreds of churches in the new French style were built all over Europe. The aesthetic imperative, long denied, just exploded in an orgy of spiritual redecorating. And just what were these people trying to say about themselves?
Primarily, they wanted to express the importance of their faith. The Church was literally and figuratively the center of their lives, and even today, if you drive around the French and German countryside, you know you’re nearing a town because the spires of the church or the cathedral suddenly appear on the horizon before you see anything else.
But at the same time, they also wanted to express how well off they were. They were middle class, and God had rewarded their faith, and they wanted their churches to reflect that fact.
And that was only the beginning. Between the years 1300 and 1500, which is the period this unit covers, there was a sort of aesthetic reawakening throughout Europe—which is a remarkable fact in light of all of the problems of this period, including the plague, the Hundred Years War, the Inquisition, and all the other bad stuff you’ll read about in the study unit.
If all of those things hadn’t happened when they did, the Renaissance would probably have arrived two hundred years earlier. But even so, an aesthetic reawakening occurred anyway, and that’s the big theme of this unit. But where were the new decorating ideas going to come from?
Well, curiously enough, there were ideas all around. Europe was littered with the decaying remains of Rome. In the city of Rome, they were even using the Pantheon as a Christian church. Yes, it was pagan, but it was also—dare we say it?—very beautiful. In Athens, they were using the Parthenon for the same purpose. And all of a sudden, the whole Greco-Roman heritage that had once seemed so odious started to exert an influence in some odd places. Take the matter of sculpture for instance.
We look at the sculpture on the north and south portals of Chartres, and darned if we don’t see some faint echoes of classical style in the idealized faces. Of course, the figures are unnaturally stiff and frontal, but at the same time, notice how the drapery of the costume hints at the shape of the body beneath.
Now, where did that come from? To the Medieval Christians, the body was bad. It was the source of all those lusty urges that they were supposed to be fighting against all the time. And nudity—well, heaven forbid!
The only time we see nude figures in Medieval art are in depictions of the suffering of the damned in hell, and then, the human body is always depicted as repulsive, grotesque.
In fact, Medieval art and sculpture before 1300 is all deliberately nonrealistic and cartoony, with little emphasis on correct body proportions or visual perspective or anything else. But was that because the artists had no talent—or was that a deliberate choice?
If you put too much emphasis on realism . . . well, isn’t that somehow disrespectful to God? Because one of the central ideas of the Greco-Roman heritage was the importance of the individual, and portraying the human body as beautiful was an inevitable extension of that idea. But to the Christians, individuals were not important—God was important. Human beings are all born in sin and hopelessly doomed to burn in hell without God’s grace—freely given through his son, but purchased through the Church collection plate. How could the human body then be portrayed as anything but a cesspool of sin?
But, at the same time, some of this Medieval stuff was, well . . . ugly. Scary. And deliberately so. But, now we want our cathedrals to inspire people to come visit our towns, to spend money, to buy our goods. And really, does ugly sculpture honor God? I mean, human beings were made in God’s image, right?